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APOLOGIA PRO YITA' SUA 






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"WHAT, THEN, DOES DE. ISTEWMAE^ MEAN?" 



' Commit tliy way to the Lord, and trust in Him, and He will do it. And He 
will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day." 



JOHK HENRY NEWMAN, D.D. 



NEW YOEK: ---* 

D. APPLETON" AND COMPAJ^Y, 
443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
1865. 

NT*- 




:^<i^^ 



ME. KINGSLEY AND DR. NEWMAN: 



. CORRESPOKDEJSrCE 

ON THE QUESTION WHETHER DR. NEWMAN TEACHES THAT 
TRUTH IS NO VIRTUE? 



ADVEETISEMENT. 

To prevent misconception, I think it necessary to observe, that, 
in my Letters here published, I am far indeed from implying any ad- 
mission of the truth of Mr. Kingsley's accusations against the Catho- 
lic Church, although I have abstained from making any formal 
protest against them. The object which led to my writing at all, 
has also led me, in writing, to turn my thoughts in a different 
direction. 

J. H. N. 
Ja/rmary 31, 1864. 

I. 

Extract from a Review of Froude^s ' History of England^ 
vols. vii. and viii., in Macmillan's Magazine for January, 
1864, signed " C. K." 

Pages 216, 217. 

" The Eoman religion had, for some time past, been making 
men not better men, but worse. We must face, we must conceive 
honestly for ourselves, the deep demorahzation which had been 
brought on in Europe by the dogma that the Pope of Eome had 
the power of creating right and wrong ; that not only truth and 



4 COEEESPONDENCE. 

falsehood, but morality and immorality, depended on his setting 
his seal to a bit of parchment. From the time that indulgences 
were hawked about in his name, which would insure pardon for 
any man, ' esti matrem I)ei violavisset,^ the world in general began 
to be of that opinion. But the mischief was older and deeper than 
those indulgences. It lay in the very notion of the dispensing 
power. A deed might be a crime, or no crime at all — ^like Henry 
the Eighth's marriage of his brother's widow — according to the 
will of the Pope. If it suited the interest or caprice of the old 
man of Eome not to say the word, the doer of a certain deed would 
be burned alive in hell for ever. If it suited him, on the other 
hand, to say it, the doer of the same deed would go, sacramentis 
munitus, to endless bliss. What rule of morality, what eternal 
law of right and wrong, could remain in the hearts of men born 
and bred under the shadow of so hideous a deception ? 

"And the shadow did not pass at once, when the Pope's au- 
thority was thrown off. Henry YIII. evidently thought that if the 
Pope could make right and wrong, perhaps he could do so likewise. 
Elizabeth seems to have fancied, at one weak moment, that the 
Pope had the power of making her marriage with Leicester right, 
instead of wrong. 

" Moreover, when the moral canon of the Pope's wiU was gone, 
there was for a while no canon of morality left. The average 
morality of Elizabeth's reign was not so much low, as capricious, 
self-willed, fortuitous ; magnificent one day in virtue, terrible the 
next in vice. It was not till more than one generation had grown 
up and died with the Bible in their hands, that Englishmen and 
Germans began to understand (what Frenchmen and Italians did 
not understand) that they were to be judged by the everlasting 
laws of a God who was no respecter of persons. 

"So, again, of the virtue of truth. Truth, for its own sake, 
had never been a virtue with the Eoman clergy. Father IsTewman 
informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be ; that 
cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints where- 
with to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which 
marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be doctrin- 
ally correct or not, it is at least historically so. 

"Ever since Pope Stephen forged an epistle from St. Peter to 
Pepin, King of the Franks, and sent it with some filings of the 
saint's holy chains, that he might bribe him to invade Italy, destroy 



COEEESPONDENCE. O 

the Lombards, and confirm to Mm the ' Patrimony of St. Peter ; ' 
ever since tlie first monk forged the first charter of his monastery, 
or dug the first heathen Anglo-Saxon out of his barrow, to make 
him a martyr and a worker of miracles, because his own minister 
did not ' draw ' as well as the rival minister ten miles off; — ever 
since this had the heap of lies been accumulating, spawning, breed- 
ing fresh lies, till men began to ask themselves whether truth was 
a thing worth troubling a practical man's head about, and to sus- 
pect that tongues were given to men, as claws to cats and horns to 
bulls, simply for purposes of offence and defence." 



11. 

Dr. Newman to Messes. Macmillan and Co. 

The Oratory, December 30, 1863. 

Gentlemen : 

I do not write to you with any controversial purpose, 
which would be preposterous ; but I address you simply because 
of your special interest in a Magazine which bears your name. 

That highly respected name you have associated with a Maga- 
zine, of which the January number has been sent to me by this 
morning's post, with a pencil mark calling my attention to page 217. 

There, apropos of Queen Elizabeth, I read as follows : — 

" Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the 
Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and 
on the whole ought not to be ; that cunning is the weapon which 
Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute 
male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in mar- 
riage. Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at 
least historically so." 

There is no reference at the foot of the page to any words of 
mine, much less any quotation from my writings, in justification 
of this statement. 

I should not dream of expostulating with the writer of such a 
passage, nor with the editor who could insert it without appending 
evidence in proof of its allegations. ISTor do I want any reparation 
from either of them. I neither complain of them for their act, nor 
should I thank them if they reversed it. Nor do I even write to 
you with any desire of troubling you to send me an answer. I do 



6 COKEESPONDENCE. 

but wish to draw the attention of yourselves, as gentlemen, to a 
grave and gratuitous slander, with which I feel confident you will 
be sorry to find associated a name so eminent as yours. 
I am, Gentlemen, 

Your obedient Servant, 
(Signed) John H. Kewman. 



III. 
The Eev. Chakles Kingsley to Dr. Newman. 

Eversley Eectory, January 6, 1864 

Eeveeend Sie : 

I have seen a letter of yours to Mr. Macmillan, in which 
you complain of some expressions of mine in an article in the Jan- 
uary number of Macmillan's Magazine. 

That my words were just, I believed from many passages of 
your writings ; but the document to which I expressly referred was 
one of your sermons on " Subjects of the Day," ISTo. XX., in the 
volume published in 1844, and entitled " Wisdom and Innocence." 
It was in consequence of that sermon that I finally shook off 
the strong influence which your writings exerted on me ; and for 
much of which I still owe you a deep debt of gratitude. 

I am most happy to hear from you that I mistook (as I under- 
stand from your letter) your meaning ; and I shall be most happy, 
on your showing me that I have wronged you, to retract my accu- 
sation as publicly as I have made it. 

I am, Keverend Sir, 

Your faithful servant, 
(Signed) Ohaeles Ketgsley. 



lY. 

Dr. Newman to the Eev. Charles Kingsley. 

The Oratory, Birmingham, January T, 1864. 

Beveeend Sie: 

I have to acknowledge your letter of the 6th, informing 
me that you are the writer of an article in Macmillan's Magazine, 



COEEESPONDEKCE. T 

in which I am mentioned, and referring generally to a Protestant 
sermon of mine, of seventeen pages, published by me, as Vicar of 
St. Mary's, in 1844, and treating of the bearing of the Christian 
towards the world, and of the character of the reaction of that 
bearing npon him ; and also, referring to my works passim ; in 
justification of your statement, categorical and definite, that 
"Fatlier Il^ewman informs us that truth for its own sake need 
not, and on the whole ought not to be, a virtue with the Eoman 
clergy." 

I have only to remark in addition to what I have already said 
with great sincerity to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., in the letter of 
which you speak, and to which I refer you, that, when I wrote to 
them, no person whatever, whom I had ever seen or heard of, had 
occurred to me as the author of the statement in question. When 
I received your letter, taking upon yourself the authorship, I was 
amazed. 

I am, Eeverend Su*, 

Your obedient servant, 
(Signed) John H. Kewman. 



Y. 

Dr. Newman to X. Y., Esq.* 

The Oratory, January 8, 1864. 

Deae Sir : 

I thank you for the friendly tone of your letter of the 5th 
just received, and I wish to reply to it with the frankness which it 
invites. I have heard from Mr. Kingsley, avowing himself, to my 
extreme astonishment, the author of the passage about which I 
wrote to Messrs. Macmillan. "Eo one, whose name I had ever 
heard, crossed my mind as the writer in their Magazine ; and, had 
any one said that it was Mr. Kingsley, I should have laughed in his 
face. Certainly, I saw the initials at the end ; but, you must recol- 
lect, I live out of the world ; and I must own, if Messrs. Macmillan 
will not think the confession rude, that, as far as I remember, I 
never before saw even the outside of their Magazine. And so of 
the editor : when I saw his name on the cover, it conveyed to me 

* A gentleman who interposed between Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Newman. 



8 COEEESPONDENCE. 

absolutely no idea wliatever. I am not defending myself, but 
merely stating what was tlie fact ; and as to the article, I said to 
myself, " Here is a young scribe, who is making himself a cheap 
reputation by smart hits at safe objects." 

All this will make you see, not only how I live out of the world, 
but also how wanton I feel it to have been in the parties concerned 
thus to let fly at me. "Were I in active controversy with the An- 
glican body, or any portion of it, as I have been before now, I 
should consider untrue assertions about me to be in a certain sense 
a rule of the game, as times go, though God forbid that I should 
indulge in them myself in the case of another. I have never been 
very sensitive of such attacks ; rarely taken notice of them. !N"ow, 
when I have long ceased from controversy, they continue : they 
have lasted incessantly from the year 1833 to this day. They do 
not ordinarily come in my way ; when they do, I let them pass 
through indolence. Sometimes friends send me specimens of them ; 
and sometimes they are such as I am bound to answer, if I would 
not compromise interests which are dearer to me than life. The 
January number of the Magazine was sent to me, I know not by 
whom, friend or foe, with the passage on which I have animad- 
verted, emphatically, not to say indignantly, scored against, l^or 
can there be a better proof that there was a call upon me to notice 
it, than the astounding fact that you can so calmly (excuse me) 
" confess plainly " of yourself, as you do, " that you had read the 
passage, and did not even think that I or any of my communion 
would think it unjust." 

Most wonderful phenomenon! An educated man, breathing 
English air, and walking in tlie light of the nineteenth century, 
thinks that neither I nor any members of my communion feel any 
difiBculty in allowing that " Truth for its own sake need not, and 
on the whole ought not to be, a virtue with the Eoman clergy ; " 
nay, that they are not at all surprised to be told that " Father 
Newman had informed " the world, that such is the standard of 
morality acknowledged, acquiesced in, by his co-religionists ! But, 
I suppose, in truth, there is nothing at all, however base, up to the 
high mark of Titus Gates, which a Catholic may not expect to be 
believed of him by Protestants, however honourable and hard- 
headed. However, dismissing this natural train of thought, I ob- 
serve' on your avowal as follows ; and I think what I shall say will 
cominend itself to your judgment as soon as I say it. 



COEEESPOinDENCE. 9 

I think you will allow, then, that there is a broad difference be- 
tween a virtue, considered in itself as a principle or rule, and the 
application or limits of it in human conduct. Catholics and Prot- 
estants, in their view of the substance of the moral virtues, agree, 
but they carry them out variously in detail ; and in particular in- 
stances, and in the case of particular actors or writers, with but in- 
different success. Truth is the same in itself and in substance to 
Catholic and Protestant ; so is purity : both virtues are to be re- 
ferred to that moral sense which is the natural possession of us all. 
But when we come to the question in detail, whether this or that 
act in particular is conformable to the rule of truth, or again to the 
rule of purity ; then sometimes there is a difference of opinion be- 
tween individuals, sometimes between schools, and sometimes be- 
tween religious communions. I, on my side, have long thought, 
even before I was a Catholic, that the Protestant system, as such, 
leads to a lax observance of the rule of purity ; Protestants think 
that the Catholic system, as such, leads to a lax observance of the 
rule of truth. I am very sorry that they should think so, but I 
cannot help it ; I lament their mistake, but I bear it as I may. If 
Mr. Kingsley had said no more than this, I should not have felt 
it necessary to criticize such an ordinary remark. But, as I should 
be committing a crime, heaping dirt upon my soul, and storing up 
for myself remorse and confusion of face ,at a future day, if I ap- 
plied my abstract belief of the latent sensuality of Protestantism, 
on a priori reasoning, to individuals, to hving persons, to authors 
and men of name, and said (not to make disrespectful allusion to 
the living) that Bishop Van Mildert, or the Eev. Dr. Spry, or Dean 
Milner, or the Eev. Charles Simeon "informs us that chastity for 
its own sake need not be, and on the whole ought not to be a vir- 
tue with the Anglican clergy," and then, when challenged for the 
proof, said, " Vide Van Mildert's Bampton Lectures and Simeon's 
Skeleton Sermons passim; " and, as I should only make the mat- 
ter still worse, if I pointed to flagrant instances of paradoxical di- 
vines or of bad clergymen among Protestants, as, for instance, to 
that popular London preacher at the end of last century who advo- 
cated polygamy in print ; so, in like manner, for a writer, when he 
is criticizing definite historical facts of the sixteenth century, which 
stand or fall on their own merits, to go out of his way to have a 
fling at an unpopular name, hving but "down," and boldly to say 
to those who know no better, who know nothing but what he tells 
1* 



10 COEEESPONDENCE. 

them, wlio take their tradition of historical facts from him, who do 
not know me^ — to say of me^ "Father Kewman informs us that 
Truth for its own sake need not &e, and on the wTiole ought not to 
&e, a virtue with the Eoman clergy," and to be thus brilliant and 
antithetical (save the mark ! ) in the very cause of Truth, is a pro- 
ceeding of so special a character as to lead me to exclaim, after the 
pattern of the celebrated saying, " O Truth^ how many lies are told 
in thy name ! " 

Such being the state of the case, I think I shall carry you along 
with nie when I say, that, if there is to be any explanation in the 
Magazine of so grave an inadvertence, it concerns the two gentle- 
men who are responsible for it, of what complexion that explana- 
tion shall be. For me, it is not I who ask for it ; I look on mainly 
as a spectator, and shaU praise or blame, according to my best 
judgment, as I see what they do. J^ot that, in so acting, I am im- 
plying a doubt of all that you tell me of them ; but " handsome is 
that handsome does." If they set about proving their point, or, 
should they find that impossible, if they say so, in either case I 
shall caU them men. But, — bear with me for harbouring a suspi- 
cion which Mr. Kingsley's letter to me has inspired, — if they pro- 
pose merely to smooth the matter over by publishing to the world 
that I have "complained," or that "they yield to my letters, ex- 
postulations, representations, explanations," or that "they are quite 
ready to be convinced of their mistake, if I wiU convince them," or 
that " they have profound respect for me, but really they are not 
the only persons who have gathered from my writings what they 
have said of me," or that "they are unfeignedly surprised that I 
should visit in their case what I have passed over in the case of 
others," or that "they have ever had a true sense of my good 
points, but cannot be expected to be blind to my faults," if this be 
the sum total of what they are to say, and they ignore the fact that 
the onvbs pro'bandi of a very definite accusation lies upon them, and 
that they have no right to throw the burden upon others, then, I 
say with submission, they had better let it all alone, as far as I am 
concerned, for a half-measure settles nothing. 

January 10. — I will add, that any letter addressed to me by 
Mr. Kingsley, I account public property ; not so, should you favour 
me with any fresh communication yourself. 

I am. Dear Sir, yours faithfully, 

(Signed) John H. Newman. 



COEEESPONDENCE. 11 

YI. 

Tlie Rev. Chaeles Kingsley to De. Newman. 

Eversley Eectory, January 14, 1864. 

Eeveeend Sie : 

I have the honour to acknowledge jour answer to my letter. 
I have also seen your letter to Mr. X. Y. On neither of them 
shall I make any comment, save to say, that, if you fancy that I 
have attacked you because you were, as you please to term it, 
"down," you do me a great injustice ; and also, that the suspicion 
expressed in the latter part of your letter to Mr. X. Y., is needless. 
The course which you demand of me, is the only course fit for 
a gentleman ; and, as the tone of your letters (even more than their 
language) makes me feel, to my very deep pleasure, that my opin- 
ion of the meaning of your words was a mistaken one, I shall send 
at once to Macmillan's Magazine the few lines which I inclose. 

You say that you wiU consider ray letters as public. You have 
every right to do so. 

I remain. Reverend Sir, 

Yours faithfully, 
(Signed) C. Kingsley. 



YII. 

\_This will ajpjpear in the next numler.'] 
" To THE Editoe of Macmillan's Magazine. 

"Sie: 

" In your last number I made certain allegations against the 
teaching of the Eev. Dr. Newman, which were founded on a ser- 
mon of his, entitled 'Wisdom and Innocence,' (the sermon will be 
folly described, as to* . . .) 

" Dr. Newman has, by letter, expressed in the strongest terms, 
his denial of the meaning which I have put upon his words. 

" No man knows the use of words better than Dr. Newman ; no 

* Here follows a word or half-word, which neither I nor any one else to 
whom I have shown the MS. can decipher. I have at p. 13 filled in for Mr. 
Kingsley what I understood him to mean by "fully." — J. H. N. 



12 COERESPONDENCE. 

!aan, therefore, lias a better right to define what he does, or does 
uot, mean by them. 

" It only remains, therefore, for me to express my hearty regret 
at having so seriously mistaken him ; and my hearty pleasure at 
finding him on the side of Truth, in this, or any other, matter. 
(Signed) Ohaeles Kingsley. 



YIII. 

Dr. Newman to the Eev. Charles Kingsley. 

The Oratory, January IT, 1864. 

Eeveeend Sie : 

Since you do no more than announce to me your intention of 
inserting in Macmillan's Magazine the letter, a copy of which you 
are so good as to transcribe for me, perhaps I am taking a liberty 
in making any remarks to you upon it. But then, the very fact of 
your showing it to me seems to invite criticism ; and so sincerely 
do I wish to bring this painfal matter to an immediate settlement, 
that, at the risk of being oflScious, I avail myself of your courtesy 
to express the judgment which I have carefully formed upon it. 

I believe it to be your wish to do me such justice as is compati- 
ble with your duty of upholding the consistency and quasi-infalli- 
bility which is necessary for a periodical publication ; and I am far 
from expecting any thing from you which would be unfair to Messrs. 
Macmillan and Co. Moreover, I am quite aware, that the reading 
public, to whom your letter is virtually addressed, cares little for 
the wording of an explanation, provided it be made aware of the 
fact that an explanation has been given. 

IlTevertheless, after giving your letter the benefit of both these 
considerations, I am sorry to say I feel it my duty to withhold from 
it the approbation which I fain would bestow. 

Its main fault is, that, quite contrary to your intention, it will 
be understood by the general readers to intimate, that I have been 
confronted with definite extracts from my works, and have laid be- 
fore you my own interpretations of them. Such a proceeding I 
have indeed challenged, but have not been so fortunate as to bring 
about. 

But besides, I gravely disapprove of the letter as a whole. The 
grounds of this dissatisfaction will be best understood by you, if I 



COEEESPONDENCE. 



13 



place in parallel columns its paragraphs, one by one, and what I 
conceive will be the popular reading of them. 
This I proceed to do. 

I have the honour to be, Eeverend Sir, 
Your obedient Servant, 
(Signed) John H. ITewman. 



Mr. Kingdey's Letter. 

1. Sir: — ^In your last number I 
made certain allegations against the 
teaching of the Rev. Dr. Newman, 
which were founded on a Sermon of 
his, entitled "Wisdom and Inno- 
cence," preached by him as Vicar of 
St. Mary, and pubhshed in 1844. 



\ hut too probable popular ren- 
dering of it. 



2. Dr. Newman has, by letter, ex- 
pressed in the strongest terms his de- 
nial of the meaning which I have put 
upon his words. 



2. I have set before Dr. Newman, 
as he challenged me to do, extracts 
from his writings, and he has affixed 
to them what he conceives to be 
their legitimate sense, to the denial 
of that in which I understood them. 



3. No man knows the use of words 
better than Dr. Newman; no man, 
therefore, has a better right to define 
what he does, or does not, mean by 
them. 



3. He has done this with the skill 
of a great master of verbal fence, 
who knows, as well as any man hv- 
ing, how to insinuate a doctrine with- 
out committing himself to it. 



4. It only remains, therefore, for 
me to express my hearty regret at 
having so seriously mistaken him, 
and my hearty pleasure at finding 
him on the side of truth, ic this or 
any other matter. 



4. However, while I heartily re- 
gret that I have so seriously mista- 
ken the sense which he assures me 
his words were meant to bear, I can- 
not but feel a hearty pleasure also, at 
having brought him, for once in a 
way, to confess that after all truth is 
a Christian virtue. 



14 COREESPONDENCE. 

IX. 

Rev. Charles Kingsley to Dr. Newman. 

Eversley Rectory, January 18, 1864. 

Eeverend Sir: 

I do not think it probable that the good sense and honesty 
of the British Public will misinterpret my apology, in the way in 
which you expect. 

Two passages in it, which I put in in good faith and good feel- 
ing, may, however, be open to such a bad use, and I have written 
to' Messrs. Macmillan to omit them; viz. the words, "No man 
knows the use of words better than Dr. Newman ; " and those, 
" My hearty pleasure at finding him in the truth (sic) on this or 
any other matter." 

As to your Art. 2, it seems to me, that, by referring publicly to 
the Sermon on which my allegations are founded, I have given, not 
only you, but every one, an opportunity of judging of their injustice. 
Having done this, and having frankly accepted your assertion that 
I was mistaken, I have done as much as one English gentleman can 
expect from another. 

I have the honour to be, Eeverend Sir, 

Your obedient Servant, 
(Signed) Ohaeles Kingslet. 



X. 

Dr. Newman to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. 

The Oratory, January 22, 1864. 

Gentlemen : 

Mr. Kingsley, the writer of the paragraph to which I 
called your attention on the 30th of last month, has shown his wish 
to recall words, which I considered a great affront to myself, and a 
worse insult to the Catholic priesthood. He has sent me the draft 
of a Letter which he proposes to insert in the February number of 
your Magazine ; and, when I gave him my criticisms upon it, he 
had the good feeling to withdraw two of its paragraphs. 

However, he did not remove that portion of it, to which, as I 
told him, lay my main objection. 

That portion ran as follows : — 



CORRESPONDENCE. 15 

" Dr. !N"ewman has by letter expressed in the strongest terms 
his denial of the meaning which I have put upon his words." 

My objection to this sentence, which (with the addition of a 
reference to a Protestant sermon of mine, which he says formed 
the ground of his assertion, and of an expfession of regret at hav- 
ing mistaken me) constitutes, after the withdrawal of the two 
paragraphs, the whole of his proposed letter, I thus explained to 
him : — 

"Its [the proposed letter's] main fault is, that, quite contrary to 
your intention, it will be understood by the general reader to inti- 
mate, that I have been confronted with definite extracts from my 
works, and have laid before you my own interpretation of them. 
Such a proceeding I have indeed challenged, but have not been so 
fortunate as to bring about." 

In answer to this representation, Mr. Kingsley wrote to me as 
follows : — 

" It seems to me, that, by referring publicly to the sermon on 
which my allegations are founded, I have given, not only you, but 
every one, an opportunity of judging of their injustice. Having 
done this, and having frankly accepted your assertion that I was 
mistaken, I have done as much as one English gentleman can ex- 
pect from another." 

I received this reply the day before yesterday. It disappointed 
me, for I had hoped that, with the insertion of a letter from him 
in your Magazine for February, there would have been an end of 
the whole matter. However, I have waited forty-eight hours, to 
give time for his explanation to make its full, and therefore its 
legitimate impression on my mind. After this interval, I find my 
judgment of the passage just what it was. 

Moreover, since sending to Mr. Kingsley that judgment, I have 
received a letter from a friend at a distance, whom I had consulted, 
a man about my own age, who lives out of the world of theological 
controversy and contemporary literature, and whose intellectual 
habits especially qualify him for taking a clear and impartial view 
of the force of words. I put before him the passage in your Janu- 
ary number, and the writer's proposed letter in February ; * and I 
asked him whether I might consider the letter suflScient for its pur- 
pose, without saying a word to show him the leaning of my own 
mind. He answers : — 

* Viz. as it is given above, p. 11. — J. H. N. 



16 COIiEESPOia)ENCE. 

" In answer to your question, whether Mr. Kingsley's proposed 
reparation is sufficient, I have no hesitation in saying. Most de- 
cidedly not. Without attempting to quote any passage from your 
writings which justifies in any manner the language which he has 
used in his review, he leaves it to be inferred that the representa- 
tion which he has given of your statements and teaching in the 
sermon to which he refers, is the fair and natural and primary 
sense of them, and that it is only by your declaring that you did 
not mean what you really and in effect said, that he finds that he 
had made a false charge." 

This opinion thus given came to me, I repeat, after I had sent 
to Mr. Kingsley the letter of objection, of which I have quoted a 
portion above. You will see that, though the two judgments 
are independent of each other, they in substance coincide. 

It only remains for me then to write to you again; and, in 
writing to you now, I do no more than I did on the 30th of-Decem- 
ber. I bring the matter before you, without requiring from you 
any reply. 

I am, Gentlemen, 

Yom* obedient Servant, 
(Signed) Johjst H. Newman. 



XI. 

Letter of Exjplanation from Mk. Kingsley, as it stands in 
Macmillan's Magazine for February, 1864, p. 368. 

TO THE EDITOR OF MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. 

SiE : In your last number I made certain allegations against the 
teaching of Dr. John Henry Newman, which I thought were justi- 
fied by a sermon of his, entitled " Wisdom and Innocence," (Ser- 
mon 20 of " Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day.") Dr. New- 
man has by letter expressed, in the strongest terms, his denial of 
the meaning which I have put upon his words. It only remains, 
therefore, for me to express my hearty regret at having so seriously 
mistaken him. 

Yours faithfully, 
(Signed) Chaeles Kingsley. 

Eversley, January 14, 1864. 



CORRESPOITOENCE. 17 

XII. 

Beflections on the above. 

I shall attempt a brief analysis of the foregoing correspondence ; 
and I trust that the wording which I shall adopt will not offend 
against the gravity due both to myself and to the occasion. It is 
impossible to do justice to the course of thought evolved in it 
without some familiarity of expression. 

Mr. Kingsley begins then by exclaiming, — " O the chicanery, 
the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy, the conscience-killing 
tyranny of Eome ! "We have not far to seek for an evidence of it. 
There's Father ITewman to wit : one living specimen is worth a 
hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing of Priests, tell us that 
lying is never any harm." 

I interpose : " You are taking a most extraordinary liberty with 
my name. If I have said this, teU me when and where." 

Mr. Kingsley replies : " You said it, Keverend Sir, in a Sermon 
which you preached, when a Protestant, as Yicar of St. Mary's, 
and published in 1844 ; and I could read you a very salutary lecture 
on the effects which that Sermon had at the time on my opinion 
of you." 

I make answer : " Oh . . . iVb^, it seems, as a Priest speaking 
of Priests ; — but let us have the passage." 

Mr. Kingsley relaxes : " Do you know, I like your tone. From 
your tone I rejoice, greatly rejoice, to be able to believe that you 
did not mean what you said." 

I rejoin : '■'■Mean it ! I maintain I never said it, whether as a 
Protestant or as a Catholic." 

Mr. Kingsley replies : "I waive that point." 

I object : "Is it possible ! What ? waive the main question I 
I either said it or I didn't. You have made a monstrous charge 
against me ; direct, distinct, public. You are bound to prove it as 
directly, as distinctly, as publicly ; — or to own you can't." 

" Well," says Mr. Kingsley, "if you are quite sure you did not 
say it, I'll take your word for it ; I really will." 

My word ! I am dumb. Somehow I thought that it was my 
word that happened to be on trial. The word of a Professor of 
lying, that he does not lie ! 



18 COEEESPONDENCE. 

But Mr. Kingsley reassures me : " "We are both gentlemen," he 
says : "I have done as much as one Enghsh gentleman can expect 
from another." 

I begin to see : he thought me a gentleman at the very time 
that he said I taught lying on system. After all, it is not I, but it 
is Mr. Kingsley who did not mean what he said. " Habemus con- 
fitentem reum." 

So we have confessedly come round to this, preaching without 
practising ; the common theme of satirists from Juvenal to Walter 
Scott ! "I left Baby Charles and Steenie laying his duty before 
him," says King James of the reprobate Dalgarno : " O Geordie, 
jingling Geordie, it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down 
the guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of 
incontinence." 

"While I feel then that Mr. Kingsley 's February explanation is 
miserably insufficient in itself for his January enormity, still I feel 
also that the correspondence, which lies between these two acts of 
his, constitutes a real satisfaction to those principles of historical 
and literary justice to which he has given so rude a shock. 

Accordingly, I have put it into print, and make no further crit- 
icism on Mr. Kingsley. 

J. H. K 



CONTENTS. 



PAOB 

PAKT I. — Me. KmGSLET Method of DisprTATioir, . . 21 

II. — Teue Mode of meetestg Me. Kingslet, . . 37 

III. — HiSTOET OF MY EeLIGIOUS OPINIONS UP TO 1833, . 53 
IV. — HiSTOET OF MY EeLIGIOUS OPINIONS FEOM 1833 

TO 1839, 84 

V. HiSTOEY OF MY EeLIGIOUS OPINIONS FEOM 1839 

TO 1841, 135 

YI. — HiSTOEY OF MY EeLIGIOIJS OPINIONS FEOM 1841 

TO 1845, 187 

YII. — Geneeal Answee to Me. Kingsley, . . . 264 

APPENDIX. — Answee in Detail to Me. Kingsley's Acoxt- 

sations, 305 

NOTES, 385 



PAET I. 

MR. KINGSLEY'S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 

I CANNOT be sorry to have forced Mr. Kingsley to bring 
out in fulness his charges against me. It is far better that he 
should discharge his thoughts upon me in my lifetime, than 
after I am dead. Under the circumstances I am happy in 
having the opportunity of reading the worst that can be said 
of me by a writer who has taken pains with his work and is 
well satisfied with it. I account it a gain to be surveyed from 
without by one who hates the principles which are nearest to 
my heart, has no personal knowledge of me to set right his 
misconceptions of my doctrine, and who has some motive or 
other to be as severe with me as he can possibly be. 

And first of all, I beg to compliment him on the motto in 
his Title-page ; it is felicitous. A motto should contain, as in 
a nutshell, the contents, or the character, or the drift, or the 
animus of the writing to which it is prefixed. The words 
which he has taken from me are so apposite as to be almost 
prophetical. There cannot be a better illustration than he 
thereby affords of the aphorism which I intended them to con- 
vey. I said that it is not more than an hyperbolical expres- 
sion to say that in certain cases a lie is the nearest approach 
to truth. Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet is emphatically one of 
such cases as are contemplated in that proposition. I really 
believe, that his view of me is about as near an approach to 



22 MK. kingsley's method of disputation. 

the truth about my writtings and doings, as he is capable of 
taking. He has done his worst towards me ; but he has also 
done his best. So far well ; but, while I impute to him no 
malice, I unfeignedly think, on the other hand, that, in his in- 
vective against me, he as faithfully fulfils the other half of the 
proposition also. 

This is not a mere sharp retort upon Mr. Kingsley, as 
will be seen, when I come to consider directly the subject, to 
which the words of his motto relate. I have enlarged on that 
subject in various passages of my publications ; I have said 
that minds in different states and circumstances cannot under- 
stand one another, and that in all cases they must be instructed 
according to their capacity, and, if not taught step by step, 
they learn only so much the less ; that children do not appre- 
hend the thoughts of grown people, nor savages the instincts 
of civilization, nor blind men the perceptions of sight, nor pa- 
gans the doctrines of Christianity, nor men the experiences of 
Angels. In the same way, there are people of matter-of-fact, 
prosaic minds, who cannot take in the fancies of poets ; and 
others of shallow, inaccurate minds, who cannot take in the 
ideas of philosophical inquirers. In a Lecture of mine I have 
illustrated this phenomenon by the supposed instance of a for- 
eigner, who, after reading a commentary on the principles of 
English Law, does not get nearer to a real apprehension of 
them than to be led to accuse Englishmen of considering that 
the Queen is impeccable and infallible, and that the Parlia- 
ment is omnipotent. Mr. Kingsley has read me from begin- 
ning to end in the fashion in which the hypothetical Russian 
read Blackstone ; not, I repeat, from malice, but because of 
his intellectual build. He appears to be so constituted as to 
have no notion of what goes on in minds very different from 
his own, and moreover to be stone-blind to his ignorance. A 
modest man or a philosopher would have scrupled to treat 
with scorn and scoffing, as Mr. Kingsley does in my own in- 
stance, principles and convictions, even if he did not acquiesce 
in them himself, which had been held so widely and for so 



ME. KINGSLEy's method OF DISPUTATION. 23 

long, — the beliefs and devotions and customs wMch have been 
the religions life of millions upon millions of Christians for 
nearly twenty centuries, — for this in fact is the task on which 
he is spending his pains. Had he been a man of large or 
cautious mind, he would not have taken it for granted that 
cultivation must lead every one to see things precisely as he 
sees them himself. But the narrow-minded are the more 
prejudiced by very reason of their narrowness. The Apostle 
bids us " in malice be children, but in understanding be men." 
I am glad to recognize in Mr. Kingsley an illustration of the 
first half of this precept ; but I should not be honest, if I 
ascribed to him any sort of fulfilment of the second. 

I wish I could speak as favourably either of his drift or of 
his method of arguing, as I can of his convictions. As to his 
drift, I think its ultimate point is an attack upon the Catholic 
Religion. It is I indeed, whom he is immediately insulting, 
— still, he views me only as a representative, and on the 
whole a fair one, of a class or caste of men, to whom, con- 
scious as I am of my own integrity, I ascribe an excellence 
superior to mine. He desires to impress* upon the public 
mind the conviction that I am a crafty, scheming man, simply 
untrustworthy ; that, in becoming a Catholic, I have just 
found my right place ; that I do but justify and am properly 
interpreted by the common English notion of Roman casuists 
and confessors ; that I was secretly a Catholic when I was 
openly professing to be a clergyman of the Established 
Church ; that so far from bringing, by means of my conver- 
sion, when at length it openly took place, any strength to the 
Catholic cause, I am really a burden to it, — an additional 
evidence of the fact, that to be a pure, germane, genuine Catho- 
lic, a man must be either a knave or a fool. 

These last words bring me to Mr. Kingsley's method of 
disputation, which I must criticize with much severity ; — in 



24 ME. 

his drift he does but follow the ordinary beat of controversy, 
but in his mode of arguing he is actually dishonest. 

He says that I am either a knave or a fool, and (as we 
shall see by and by) he is not quite sure which, probably both. 
He tells his readers that on one occasion he said that he had 
fears I should " end in one or other of two misfortunes." 
" He would either," he continues, " destroy his own sense of 
honesty, i. e., conscious truthfulness — and become a dishonest 
person ; or he would destroy his common sense, i. e., uncon- 
scious truthfulness, and become the slave and puppet seemingly 

of his own logic, really of his own fancy I thought 

for years past that he had become the former ; I now see that 
he has become the latter," p. 20. Again, " When I read 
these outrages upon common sense, what wonder if I said to 
myself, ' This man cannot believe what he is saying ?'" p. 26. 
Such has been Mr. Kingsley's state of mind till lately, but 
now he considers that I am possessed with a spirit of " almost 
boundless silliness," of " simple credulity, the child of scepti- 
cism," of " absurdity" (p. 41), of a " self-deception which has 
become a sort of frantic honesty" (p. 26). And as to his 
fundamental reason for this change, he tells us, he really does 
not know what it is (p. 44). However, let the reason be 
what it will, its upshot is intelligible enough. He is enabled 
at once, by this professed change of judgment about me,^to 
put forward one of these alternatives, yet to keep the other in 
reserve ; — and this he actually does. He need not commit 
himself to a definite accusation against me, such as requires 
definite proof and admits of definite refutation ; for he has two 
strings to his bow ; — when he is thrown off his balance on the 
one leg, he can recover himself by the use of the other. If I 
demonstrate that I am not a knave, he may exclaim, " Oh, 
but you are a fool ! " and when I demonstrate that I am not a 
fool, he may turn round and retort, " Well, then, you are a 
kUave." I have no objection to reply to his arguments in 
behalf of either alternative, but I should have been better 
pleased to have been allowed to take them one at a time. 



]Vm. iKINGSLEY's METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 25 

But I have not yet done fall justice to the method of dis- 
putation which Mr. Kingsley thinks it right to adopt. Ob- 
serve this first : — ^He means by a man who is " silly " not a 
man who is to be pitied, but a man who is to be abhorred. 
He means a man who is not simply weak and incapable, but a 
moral leper ; a man who, if not a knave, has every thing bad 
about him except knavery ; nay, rather, has together with 
every other worst vice, a spice of knavery to boot. Sis sim- 
pleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his hav- 
ing once been a knave. His simpleton is not a born fool 
but a self-made idiot, one who has drugged and abused him- 
self into a shameless depravity ; one who, without any mis- 
giving or remorse, is guilty of drivelling superstition, of reck- 
less violation of sacred things, of fanatical excesses, of pas- 
sionate inanities, of unmanly audacious tyranny over the 
weak, meriting the wrath of fathers and brothers. This is 
that milder judgment, which he seems to pride himself upon 
as so much charity ; and, as he expresses it, he " does not 
know" why. This is what he really meant in his letter to me 
of January 14, when he withdrew his charge of my being dis- 
honest. He said, " The to7ie of your letters, even more than 
their language, makes me feel, to my very deep pleasure,'^ — 
what ? that you have gambled away your reason, that you are 
an intellectual sot, that you are a fool in a frenzy. And in 
his Pamphlet, he gives us this explanation why he did not say 
this to my face, viz., that he had been told that I was " in 
weak health," and was " averse to controversy," pp. 6 and 8. 
He " felt some regret for having disturbed me." 

But I pass on from these multiform imputations, and con- 
fine myself to this one consideration, viz., that he has made 
any fresh imputation upon me at all. He gave up the charge 
of knavery ; well and good : but where was the logical neces- 
sity of his bringing another? I am sitting at home without 
a thought of Mr. Kingsley ; he wantonly breaks in upon me 
with the charge that I had " informed" the world "that Truth 
for its own sake need not, and on the whole ought not to he a 
2 



26 

virtue with the Roman clergy." When challenged on the 
point he cannot bring a fragment of evidence in proof of his 
assertion, and he is convicted of false witness by the voice of 
the world. Well, I should have thought that he had now 
nothing whatever more to do. "Vain man!" he seems to 
make answer, " what simplicity in you to think so ! If you 
have not broken one commandment, let us see whether we 
cannot convict you of the breach of another. If you are not 
a swindler or forger, you are guilty of arson or burglary. By 
hook or by crook you shall not escape. Are you to suffer or 
If What does it matter to you who are going off the stage, 
to receive a slight additional daub upon a character so deeply 
stained already? But think of me, the immaculate lover of 
Truth, so observant (as I have told you p. 8) of ' hault cour- 
age and strict honour' — and (^aside) — ' and not as this publi- 
can' — do you think I can let you go scot free instead of my- 
self ? No ; noblesse oblige. Go to the shades, old man, and 
boast that Achilles sent you thither." 

But I have not even yet done with Mr. Kingsley's method 
of disputation. Observe secondly : — when a man is said to 
be a knave or a fool, it is commonly meant that he is eitJier the 
one or the other ; and that, — either in the sense that the hypo- 
thesis of his being a fool is too absurd to be entertained ; or, 
again, as a sort of contemptuous acquittal of one, who after 
aU has not wit enough to be wicked. But this is not at all 
what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the antithesis which 
he suggests to his readers. Though he speaks of me as an 
utter dotard and fanatic, yet all along, from the beginning of 
his Pamphlet to the end, he insinuates, he proves from my 
writings, and at length in his last pages he openly pronounces, 
that after all he was right at first, in thinking me a conscious 
liar and deceiver. 

Now I wish to dwell on this point. It cannot be doubt- 
edj I say, that, in spite of his professing to consider me as a 
dotard and driveller, on the ground of his having given up the 
notion of my being a knave, yet it is the very staple of his 



ME, KINGSLEy'S method OF DISPUTATION. 27 

Pamphlet that a knave after all I must be. By insinuation, 
or by implication, or by question, or by irony, or by sneer, or 
by parable, he enforces again and again a conclusion which he 
does not categorically enunciate. 

For instance (1) P. 14. " I know that men used to suspect 
Dr. Newman^ I have been inclined to do so myself, of writing 

a whole sermon for the sake of one single 

passing hint, one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow 

which he delivered unheeded, as with his 

finger tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to he 
ivithdravm again." 

(2) P. 15. " How was I to know that the preacher, who 
had the reputation of being the most acute man of his genera- 
tion, and of having a specially intimate acquaintance with the 
weaknesses of the human heart, was utterly blind to the broad 
meaning and the plain practical result of a sermon like this, 
delivered before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung 
upon his every word ? That he did not foresee that they would 
think that they obeyed him, by becoming affected, artificial, sly, 
shifty, ready for concealments and equivocations?" 

(3) P. 17. "No one would have suspected him to be a 
dishonest man, if he had not perversely chosen to assume a 
style which (as he himself confesses) the world always associ- 
ates with dishonesty." 

(4) Pp. 29, 30. " If he will indulge in subtle paradoxes, 
in rhetorical exaggerativ^Hs ; if, whenever he touches on the 
question of truth and honesty, he will take a perverse pleasure 
in saying something shocking to plain English notions, he must 
take the consequences of his own eccentricities." 

(5) P. 34. "At which most of my readers will be in- 
clined to cry : ' Let Dr. Newman alone, after that 

He had a human reason once, no doubt : but he has gambled 
it away.' True : so true, &c." 

(6) P. 34. He continues : " I should never have written 
these pages, save because it was my duty to show the world, 
if not Dr. Newman, how the mistake (!) of his not caring 
for truth arose." 



28 ME. 

(7) p. 37. " And this is the man, who when accused of 
countenancing falsehood, puts on first a tone of plaintive ( ! ) 
and startled innocence, and then one of smug self-satisfaction 
— as who should ask, ' What have I said ? What have I done ? 
Why am I on my trial ? ' " 

(8) P. 40. " What Dr. Newnian teaches is clear at last, 
and I see now how deeply I have wronged him. So far from 
thinking truth for its own sake to be no virtue, he considers it 
a virtue so lofty as to he unattainable hy man." 

(9) P. 43. " There is no use in wasting words on this 
' economical ' statement of Dr. Newman's. I shall only say 
that there are people in the world whom it is very difficult to 
help. As soon as they are got out of one scrape, they walk 
straight into another." 

(10) P. 43. "Dr. Newman has shown 'wisdom' enough 

of that serpentine type which is his professed ideal . 

Yes, Dr. Newman is a very economical person." 

(11) P. 44. "Dr. Newman tries ^hj cunning sleight-of- 
hand logic, to prove that I did not believe the accusation when 
I made it." 

(12) P. 45. " These are hard words. If Dr. Newman 
shall complain of them, I can only remind him of the fate 
which befell the stork caught among the cranes, evsn though the 
stork had not done all he could to make himself like a crane, 
as Dr. Newman has, by ' economising ' on the very title-page 
of his pamphlet." "" 

These last words bring us to another and far worse instance 
of these slanderous assaults upon me, but its place is in a sub- 
sequent page. 

Now it may be asked of me, " Well, why should not Mr. 
Kingsley take a course such as this ? It was his original as- 
sertion that Dr. Newman was a professed liar, and a patron 
of lies ; he spoke somewhat at random ; granted ; but now he 
has got up his references and he is proving, not perhaps the 
very thing which he said at first, but something very like it, 
and to say the least quite as bad. He is now only aiming to 



ME. KINGSLEt's method OF DISPUTATION. 29 

justify morally his original assertion ; why is he not at liberty 
to do so ? " 

Why should he not now insinuate that I am a liar and a 
knave ! he had of course a perfect right to make such a charge, 
if he chose ; he might have said, " I was virtually right, and 
here is the proof of it," but this he has not done, but on the 
contrary has professed that he no longer draws from my works, 
as he did before, the inference of my dishonesty. He says 
distinctly, p. 26, " When I read these outrages upon common 
sense, what wonder if I said to myself,* ' This man cannot be- 
lieve what he is saying ? ' I believe I luas wrong." And in p. 
31, "I said, 'This man has no real care for truth. Truth for 
its own sake is no virtue in his eyes, and he teaches that it 
need not be.* I do not say that now." And in p. 41, "I do 
not call this conscious dishonesty ; the man who wrote that 
sermon was already past the possibility of such a sin." 

Why should he not ! because it is on the ground of my not 
being a knave that he calls me a fool ; adding to the words 
just quoted, " [My readers] have fallen perhaps into the pre- 
vailing superstition that cleverness is synonymous with wisdom. 
They cannot believe that (as is too certain) great literary and 
even barristerial ability may coexist with almost boundless 
silliness." 

Why should he not ! because he has taken credit to him- 
self for that high feeling of honour which refuses to withdraw 
a concession which once has been made ; though (wonderful 
to say ! ) at the very time that he is recording this magnani- 
mous resolution, he lets it out of the bag that his relinquish- 
ment of it is only a profession and a pretence ; for he says, p. 
8 : " I have accepted Dr. Newman's denial that [the Sermon] 
means what I thought it did ; and heaven forbid" (oh ! ) " that 
I should withdraw my word once given, at whatever disadvan- 
tage to myself." Disadvantage ! but nothing can be advan- 
tageous to him which is untrue ; therefore in proclaiming that 
the concession of my honesty is a disadvantage to him, he 
thereby implies unequivocally that there is some probability 



30 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION". 

still, that I am c^^shonest. He goes on, " I am informed by 
those from whose judgment on such points there is no appeal, 
that ' en hault courage^' and strict honour, I am also precluded, 
by the terms of my explanation, from using any other of Dr. 
Newman's past writings to prove my assertion." And then, 
" I have declared Dr. Newsman to have been an honest man up 
to the 1st of February, 1864 ; it was, as I shall show, only Dr. 
Newman's fault that I ever thought him to be any thing else. 
It depends entirely on Dr. Newman whether he shall sustain 
the reputation which he has so recently acquired" (by diplo- 
ma of course from Mr. Kingsley). " If I give him thereby a 
fresh advantage in this argument, he is most welcome to it. 
He needs, it seems to me, as many advantages as possible." 

What a princely mind ! How loyal to his rash promise, 
how^ delicate towards the subject of it, how conscientious in 
his interpretation of it ! I hare no thought of irreverence 
towards a Scripture Saint, who was actuated by a very differ- 
ent spirit from Mr. Kingsley's, but somehow since I read his 
Pamphlet words have been running in my head, which I find 
in the Douay version thus : " Thou hast also with thee Senaei 
the son of Gera, who cursed me with a grievous curse when I 
went to the camp, but I swore to him, saying, I will not kill 
thee with the sword. Do not thou hold him guiltless. But 
thou art a wise man and knowest what to do with him, and 
thou shalt bring down his gray hairs with blood to hell." 

Now I ask. Why could not Mr. Kingsley be open ? If he 
intended still to arraign me on the charge of lying, why could 
he not say so as a man ? Why must he insinuate, question, 
imply, and use sneering and irony, as if longing to touch a for- 
bidden fruit, which still he was afraid would burn his fingers, 
if he did so? Why must he "palter in a double sense," and 
blow hot and cold in one breath ? He first said he considered 
me a patron of lying ; well, he changed his opinion ; and as to 
the logical ground of this change, he said that, if any one asked 
him what it was, he could only answer that he really did not 
know. Why could not he change back again, and say he did 



MK. KINGSLEt's method OF DISPUTATIOIT. 31 

not know why? He had quite a right to do so ; and then his 
conduct would have been so far straightforward and unexcep- 
tionable. But no ; — in the very act of professing to believe in 
my sincerity, he takes care to show the world that it is a pro- 
fession and nothing more. That very proceeding which at p. 
1 5 he lays to my charge (whereas I detest it) , of avowing one 
thing and thinking another, that proceeding he here exemplifies 
himself ; and yet, while indulging in practices as offensive as 
this, he ventures to speak of his sensitive admiration of " hault 
courage and strict honour ! " "I forgive you. Sir Knight," 
says the heroine in the Romance, " I forgive you as a Chris- 
tian." " That means," said Wamba, " that she does not for- 
give him at all." Mr. Kingsley's word of honour is about as 
valuable as in the jester's opinion was the Christian charity of 
Rowena. But here we are brought to a further specimen of 
Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation, and having duly exhibit- 
ed it, I shall have done with him. 

It is his last, and he has intentionally reserved it for his 
last. Let it be recollected that he professed to absolve me 
from his original charge of dishonesty up to February 1. 
And further, he implies that, at the time when he was writing, 
I had not yet involved myself in any fresh acts suggestive of 
that sin. He says that I have had a great escape of convic- 
tion, that he hopes I shall take warning, and act more cau- 
tiously. " It depends entirely," he says, " on Dr. Newman, 
whether he shall sustain the reputation which he has so re- 
cently acquired" (p. 8). Thus, in Mr. Kingsley judgment, I 
was then, when he wrote these words, still innocent of dishon- 
esty, for a man cannot sustain what he actually has not got ; 
only he could not he sure of my future. Could not be sure ! 
Why at this very time he had already noted down valid 
proofs, as he thought them, that I had already forfeited the 
characj;er which he contemptuously accorded to me. He had 
cautiously said "tip to February 1st," in order to reserve the 
Title-page and last three pages of my Pamphlet, which were 
not published till February 12th, and out of these four pages, 



32 ME. kingsley's method of disputation. 

which he had not whitewashed, he had already forged charges 
against me of dishonesty at the very time that he implied that 
as yet there was nothing against me. When he gave me that 
plenary condonation, as it seemed to be, he had already done 
his best that I should never enjoy it. He knew well at p. 8, 
what he meant to say at pp. 44 and 45. At best indeed I was 
only out upon ticket of leave ; but that ticket was a pretence ; 
he had made it forfeit when he gave it. But he did not say 
so at once, first because between p. 8 and p. 44 he meant to 
talk a great deal about my idiotcy and my frenzy, which 
would have been simply out of place, had he proved me too 
soon to be a knave again ; and next, because he meant to 
exhaust all those insinuations about my knavery in the past, 
which " strict honour" did not permit him to countenance, in 
order thereby to give colour and force to his direct charges of 
knavery in the present, which " strict honour " did permit 
him to handsel. So in the fifth act he gave a start, and found 
to his horror that, in my miserable four pages, I had commit- 
ted the " enormity" of an " economy," which in matter of fact 
he had got by heart before he began the play. Nay, he sud- 
denly found two, three, and (for what he knew) as many as 
four profligate economies in that Title-page and those Reflec- 
tions, and he uses the language of distress and perplexity at 
this appalling discovery. 

Now why this coup de theatre f The reason soon breaks 
on us. Up to February 1, he could not categorically arraign 
me for lying, and therefore could not involve me (as was so 
necessary for his case) in the popular abhorrence which is 
felt for the casuists of Rome : but, as soon as ever he could 
openly and directly pronounce (saving his " hault courage and 
strict honour ") that I am guUty of three or four new econo- 
mies, then at once I am made to bear, not only my own sins, 
but the sins of other people also, and, though I have been con- 
doned the knavery of my antecedents, I am guilty of the knav- 
ery of a whole priesthood instead. So the hour of doom for 
Semei is come, and the wise man knows what to do with him ; — 



ME. KINGSLEy's method OF DISPUTATION. 33 

he is down upon me with the odious names of " St. Alfonso 
da Liguori," and "Scavini" and " Neyraguet," and "the 
Romish moralists," and their " compeers and pupils," and 
I am at once merged and whirled away in the gulph of 
notorious quibblers, and hypocrites, and rogues. 

But we have not even yet got at the real object of the 
stroke, thus reserved for his finale, I really feel sad for 
what I am obliged now to say. I am in warfare with 
him, but I wish him no ill ; — it is very difficult to get up 
resentment towards persons whom one has never seen. It is 
easy enough to be irritated with friends or foes, vis-d-vis ; but, 
though I am writing with all my heart against what he has 
said of me, I am not conscious of personal unkindness towards 
himself. I think it necessary to write as I am writing, for 
my own sake, and for the sake of the Catholic Priesthood ; 
but I wish to impute nothing worse to Mr. Kingsley than that 
he has been furiously carried away by his feelings. But 
what shall I say of the upshot of all this talk of my economies 
and equivocations and the like ? What is the precise work 
which it is directed to effect? I am at war with him ; but 
there is such a thing as legitimate warfare : war has its 
laws ; there are things which may fairly be done, and things 
which may not be done. I say it with shame and with stern 
sorrow ; — ^he has attempted a great transgression ; he has 
attempted (as I may call it) to poison the wells. I will quote 
him and explain what I mean. 

" Dr. Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand logic, to 
prove that I did not believe the accusation when I made it. 
Therein he is mistaken. I did believe it, and I believed also 
his indignant denial. But when he goes on to ask with sneers, 
why I should believe his denial, if I did not consider him 
trustworthy in the first instance ? I can only answer, I really 
do not know. There is a great deal to be said for that view, 
now that Dr. Newman has become (one must needs suppose) 
suddenly and since the 1st of February, 1864, a convert to the 
economic views of St. Alfonso da Liguori and his compeers. 
2* 



34 ME. kingsley's method of disputation. 

I am henceforth in doubt and /ear, as much as any honest man 
can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman may write. How 
can I tell that I shall not he the dupe of some cunning equivoca- 
tion, of one of the three kinds laid down as permissible by the 
blessed Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils, even when con- 
firmed by an oath, because ' then we do not deceive our 

neighbour, but allow him to deceive himself ? ' It is 

admissible, therefore, to use words and sentences which have 
a double signification, and leave the hapless hearer to take 
which of them he may choose. What proof have J, then, that 
hy ' mean it f I never said it ! ' Dr. Newman does not signify, 
' I did not say it, but I did mean it? ' " — ^Pp. 44, 45. 

Now these insinuations and questions shall be answered in 
their proper places ; here I will but say that I scorn and de- 
test lying, and quibbling, and double-tongued practice, and 
slyness, and cunning, and smoothness, and cant, and pretence, 
quite as much as any Protestants hate them ; and I pray to be 
kept from the snare of them. But all this is just now by the 
bye ; my present subject is Mr. Kingsley ; what I insist upon 
here, now that I am bringing this portion of my discussion to 
a close, is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding 
pages, to cut the ground from under my feet ; — to poison by 
anticipation the public mind against me, John Henry New- 
man, and to infuse into the imaginations of my readers, suspi- 
cion and mistrust of every thing that I may say in reply to 
him. Tliis I call poisoning the wells. 

"I am henceforth in douht and fear, ^' he says " as much 
as any honest man can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman 
may write. How can I tell that I shall not he the dupe of some 
cunning equivocation f . . . What proof have I, that by ' mean 
it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman does not signify, ' I did 
not say it, but I did mean it ? '" 

Well, I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take effect, I 
am but wasting my time in saying a word in answer to his 
foul calumnies ; and this is precisely what he knows and in- 
tends to be its fruit. I can hardly get myself to protest against 



35 

a method of controversy so base and cruel, lest in doing so I 
should be violating my self-respect and self-possession ; but 
most base and most cruel it is. We all know how our imag- 
ination runs away with us, how suddenly and at what a pace : 
the saying, " Caesar's wife should not be suspected," is an in- 
stance of what I mean. The habitual prejudice, the humour 
of the moment, is the turning-point which leads us to read a 
defence in a good sense or a bad. We interpret it by our an- 
tecedent impressions. The very same sentiments, according 
as our jealousy is or is not awake, or our aversion stimulated, 
are tokens of truth or of dissimulation and pretence. There 
is a story of a sane person being by mistake shut up in the 
wards of a lunatic asylum, and that, when he pleaded his 
cause to some strangers visiting the establishment, the only 
remark he elicited in answer was, " How naturally he talks ! 
you would think he was in his senses." Controversies should 
be decided by the reason ; is it legitimate warfare to appeal to 
the misgivings of the public mind and to its dislikings ? Any 
how, if Mr. Kingsley is able thus to practice upon my readers, 
the more I succeed, the less will be my success. If I am nat- 
ural, he will tell them, " Ars est celare artem ; " if I am con- 
vincing, he will suggest that I am an able logician ; if I show 
warmth, I am acting the indignant innocent ; if I am calm, I 
am thereby detected as a smooth hypocrite ; if I clear up dif- 
ficulties, I am too plausible and perfect to be true. The more 
triumphant are my statements, the more certain will be my 
defeat. 

So will it be if Mr. Kingsley succeeds in his manoeuvre ; 
but I do not for an instant believe that he wiU. Whatever 
judgment my readers may eventually form of me from these 
pages, I am confident that they will believe me in what I shall 
say in the course of them. I have no misgiving at all, that 
they will be ungenerous or harsh with a man who has been so 
long before the eyes of the world ; who has so many to speak 
of him from personal knowledge ; whose natural impulse it 
has ever been to speak out ; who has ever spoken too much 



36 

rather than too little ; who would have saved himself many a 
scrape, if he had been wise enough to hold his tongue ; who 
has ever been fair to the doctrines and arguments of his oppo- 
nents ; who has never slurred over facts and reasonings which 
told against himself ; who has never given his name or author- 
ity to proofs which he thought unsound, or to testimony which 
he did not think at least plausible ; who has never shrunk from 
confessing a fault when he felt that he had committed one ; 
who has ever consulted for others more than for himself ; who 
has given up much that he loved and prized and could have 
retained, but that he loved honesty better than name, and 
Truth better than dear friends. 

And now I am in a train of thought higher and more 
serene than any which slanders can disturb. Away with you, 
Mr. Kingsley, and fly into space. Your name shall occur 
again as little as I can help, in the course of these pages. I 
shall henceforth occupy myself not with you, but with your 
charges. 



PAKT II. 

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 

What shall be the special imputation, against which I 
shall throw myself in these pages, out of the thousand and 
one which my accuser directs upon me ? I mean to confine 
myself to one, for there is only one about which I much care — 
the charge of Untruthfulness. He may cast upon me as many 
other imputations as he pleases, and they may stick on me, as 
long as they can, in the course of nature. They will fall to 
the ground in their season. 

And indeed I think the same of the charge of Untruthful- 
ness, and I select it from the rest, not because it is more for- 
midable, but because it is more serious. Like the rest, it may 
disfigure me for a time, but it will not stain : Archbishop 
Whately used to say, "Throw dirt enough, and some will 
stick ; " well, will stick, but not stain. I think he used to 
mean " stain," and I do not agree with him. Some dirt 
sticks longer than other dirt ; but no dirt is immortal. Ac- 
cording to the old saying, Pr^evalebit Veritas. There are vir- 
tues indeed which the world is not fitted to judge about or to 
uphold, such as faith, hope, and charity : but it can judge 
about Truthfulness ; it can judge about the natural virtues, 
and Truthfulness is one of them. Natural virtues may also 
become supernatural ; Truthfulness is such ; but that does not 
withdraw it from the jurisdiction of mankind at large. It 



38 TEUE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY. 

may be more difficult in this or that particular case for men to 
take cognizance of it, as it may be difficult for the Court of 
Queen's Bench at Westminster to try a case fairly, which 
took place in Hindoostan ; but that is a question of capacity, 
not of right. Mankind has the right to judge of Truthfulness 
in the case of a Catholic, as in the case of a Protestant, of an 
Italian, or of a Chinese. I have never doubted, that in my 
hour, in God's hour, my avenger will appear, and the world will 
acquit me of untruthfulness, even though it be not while I live. 

Still more confident am I of such eventual acquittal, seeing 
that my judges are my own countrymen. I think, indeed, 
Englishmen the most suspicious and touchy of mankind ; I 
think them unreasonable and unjust in their seasons of excite- 
ment ; but I had rather be an Englishman (as in fact I am) 
than belong to any other race under heaven. They are as 
generous as they are hasty and burly ; and their repentance 
for their injustice is greater than their sin. 

For twenty years and more I have borne an imputation, 
of which I am at least as sensitive, who am the object of it, 
as they can be, who are only the judges. I have not set my- 
self to remove it, first, because I never have had an opening 
to speak, and, next, because I never saw in them the dispo- 
sition to hear. I have wished to appeal from Philip drunk to 
Philip sober. When shall I pronounce him to be himself 
again? If I may judge from the tone of the public press, 
which represents the public voice, I have great reason to take 
heart at this time. I have been treated by contemporary 
critics in this controversy with great fairness and gentleness, 
and I am grateful to them for it. However, the decision of 
the time and mode of my defence has been taken out of my 
hands ; and I am thankful that it has been so. I am bound 
now as a duty to myself, to the Catholic cause, to the Catholic 
Priesthood, to give account of myself without any delay, when 
I am so rudely and circumstantially charged with Untruthful- 
ness. I accept the challenge ; I shall do my best to meet it, 
and I shall be content when I have done so. 



TRUE MODE OF MEETIKG ME. KINGSLET. 39 

I confine myself then, in these pages, to the charge of Un- 
truthfulness ; and I hereby cart away, as so much rubbish, 
the impertinences, with which the Pamphlet of Accusation 
swarms. I shall not think it necessary here to examine, 
whether I am "worked into a pitch of confusion," or have 
" carried self-deception to perfection," or am " anxious to 
show my credulity," or am " in a morbid state of mind," 
or " hunger for nonsense as my food," or " indulge in 
subtle paradoxes" and "rhetorical exaggerations," or have 
" eccentricities" or teach in a style "utterly beyond" my Ac- 
cuser's " comprehension," or create in him " blank astonish- 
ment," or " exalt the magical powers of my Church," or have 
" unconsciously committed myself to a statement which strikes 
at the root of all morality," or " look down on the Protestant 
gentry as without hope of heaven," or " had better be sent to 
the furthest" Catholic "mission among the savages of the 
South seas," than " to teach in an Irish Catholic University," 
or have " gambled away my reason," or adopt " sophistries," 
or have published " sophisms piled upon sophisms," or have in 
my sermons " culminating wonders," or have a " seemingly 
sceptical method," or have " barristerial ability" and " almost 
boundless silliness," or " make great mistakes," or am " a 
subtle dialectician," or perhaps have " lost my temper," or 
"misquote Scripture," or am " antiscriptural," or "border 
very closely on the Pelagian heresy." — Pp. 5, 7, 26, 29-34, 
37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 48. 

These all are impertinences ; and the list is so long that I am 
almost sorry to have given them room which might be better used. 
However, there they are, or at least a portion of them ; and 
having noticed them thus much, I shall notice them no more. 

Coming then to the subject, which is to furnish the staple 
of my publication, the question of my Truthfulness, I first di- 
rect attention to the passage which the Act of Accusation con- 
tains at p. 8 and p. 42. I shall give my reason presently, 
why I begin with it. 



40 TEUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 

My Accuser is speaking of my Sermon on Wisdom and In- 
nocence, and lie says, " It must be remembered always that it 
is not a Protestant, but a Romish sermon." — P. 8. 

Then at p. 42 he continues, " Dr. Newman does not ap- 
ply to it that epithet. He called it in his letter to me of the 
7th of January (published by him), a 'Protestant' one. 
I remarked that, but considered it a mere slip of the pen. 
Besides, I have now nothing to say to that letter. It is 
to his ' Reflections,' in p. 32, which are open ground to me, 
that I refer. In them he deliberately repeats the epithet ' Prot- 
estant : " only he, in an utterly imaginary conversation, puts it 
into my mouth, ' which you preached Avhen a Protestant.' I 
call the man who preached that Sermon a Protestant? I 
should have sooner called him a Buddliist. At that very time 
he was teaching his disciples to scorn and repudiate that name 
of Protestant, under which, for some reason or other, he now 
finds it convenient to take shelter. If he forgets, the world does 
not, the famous article in the British Critic (the then organ of 
his party), of three years before July, 1841, which, after de- 
nouncing the name of Protestant, declared the object of the 
party to be none other than the •• unprotestantising ' the English 
Church." 

In this passage my accuser asserts or implies, 1. that the 
Sermon, on which he originally grounded his slander against 
me in the January No. of the Magazine, was really and in 
matter of fact a " Romish" Sermon ; 2. that I ought in my 
Pamphlet to have acknowledged this fact ; 3. that I didn't. 4. 
That I actually called it instead a Protestant Sermon. 5. 
That at the time when I published it, twenty years ago, I 
should have denied that it was a Protestant Sermon. 6. By 
consequence, I should in that denial have avowed that it was 
a " Romish" Sermon ; 7. and therefore, not only, when I was 
in the Established Church, was I guilty of the dishonesty of 
preaching what at the time I knew to be a " Romish" Ser- 
mon, but now, too, in 1864, I have committed the additional 
dishonesty of calling it a Protestant Sermon. If my accuser 



TKUE MODE OF MEETING MK. KINGSLEY. 41 

does not mean this, I submit to such reparation as I owe him 
for my mistake, but I cannot make out that he means any 
thing else. 

Here are two main points to be considered: 1. I in 1864 
have called it a Protestant Sermon. 2. He in 1844 and now 
has styled it a Popish Sermon. Let me take these two points 
separately. 

1. Certainly, when I was in the English Church, I did 
disown the word "Protestant," and that, even at an earlier 
date than my Accuser names ; but just let us see whether this 
fact is any thing at all to the purpose of his accusation. Last 
January 7th I spoke to this effect : " How can you prove that 
Father Newman informs us of a certain thing about the 
Roman Clergy," by referring to a Protestant Sermon of the 
Vicar of St. Mary's ? My Accuser answers me thus : " There's 
a quibble ! why, Protestant is not the word which you would 
have used when at St. Mary's, and yet you use it now ! " Very 
true ; I do ; but what on earth does this matter to my argument f 
how does this word " Protestant," which I used, tend in any 
degree to make my argument a quibble ? What word should I 
have used twenty years ago instead of " Protestant? " " Ro- 
man " or " Romish? " by no manner of means. 

My Accuser, indeed, says that " it must always be remem- 
bered that it is not a Protestant hut a Romish Sermon." He 
implies, and, I suppose, he thinks, that not to be a Protestant 
is to be a Roman ; he may say so, if he pleases, but so did 
not say that large body who have been called by the name 
of Tractarians, as all the world knows. The movement pro- 
ceeded on the very basis of denying that position which my 
Accuser takes for granted that I allowed. It ever said, and it 
says now, that there is something between Protestant and 
Romish ; that there is a " Via Media," which is neither the 
one nor the other. Had I been asked twenty years ago, what 
the doctrine of the Established Church was, I should have an- 
swered, " Neither Romish nor Protestant, but ' Anglican' or 
* Anglo-catholic' " I should never have granted that the Ser- 



42 TEUE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY. 

mon was Romish ; I should have denied, and that with an in- 
ternal denial, quite as much as I do now, that it was a Roman 
or Romish Sermon. Well then, substitute the word " Angli- 
can" or "Anglo-catholic" for "Protestant" in my question, 
and see if the argument is a bit the worse for it, — thus : 
" How can you prove that Father Newman informs us a cer- 
tain thing about the Roman Clergy, by referring to an Anglican 
or Anglo-catholic Sermon of the Vicar of St. Mary's ? " The 
cogency of the argument remains just where it was. What 
have I gained in the argument, what has he lost, by my having 
^said, not " an Anglican Sermon," but a " Protestant Ser- 
mon ? " What dust then is he throwing into our eyes ! 

For instance : in 1844: I lived at Littlemore, two or three 
miles distant from Oxford ; and Littlemore lies in three, per- 
haps in four, distinct parishes, so that of particular houses it is 
difficult to say, whether they are in St. Mary's, Oxford, or in 
Cowley, or in Iffley, or in Sanford, the line of demarcation 
running even through them. Now, supposing I were to say 
in 1864, that " twenty years ago I did not live in Oxford, he- 
cause I lived out at Littlemore, in the parish of Cowley ; " and 
if upon this there were letters of mine produced dated Little- 
more, 1844, in one of which I said that " I lived, not in Cow- 
ley, but at Littlemore, in St. Mary's parish," how would that 
prove that I contradicted myself, and that therefore after all I 
must be supposed to have been living in Oxford in 1844? 
The utmost that would be proved by the discrepancy, such as 
it was, would be, that there was some confusion either in me, 
or in the state of the fact as to the limits of the parishes. 
There would be no confusion about the place or spot of my 
residence. I should be saying in 1864, " I did not live in Ox- 
ford twenty years ago, because I lived at Littlemore, in the 
Parish of Cowley." I should have been saying in 1844, " I 
do not live in Oxford, because I live in St. Mary's, Little- 
more." In either easel should be saying that my habitat in 
1844 was not Oxford, but Littlemore ; and I should be giving 
the same reason for it. I should be proving an alibi. I 



TEUE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY. 43 

should be naming the same place for the alihi; "hut twenty years 
ago I should have spoken of it as St. Mary's, Littlemore, and 
to-day I should have spoken of it as Littlemore, in the Parish 
of Cowley. 

And so as to my Sermon ; in January, 1864, I called it a 
Protestant Sermon, and not a Roman ; but in 1844 I should, 
if asked, have called it an Anglican Sermon, and not a Ro- 
man. In both cases I should have denied that it was Roman, 
and that on the ground of its being something else ; though I 
should have called that something else, then by one name, now 
by another. The doctrine of the Via Media is a fact^ what- 
ever name we give to it ; I, as a Roman Priest, find it more 
natural and usual to call it Protestant : I, as an Oxford Vicar, 
thought it more exact to call it Anglican ; but, whatever I 
then called it, and whatever I now call it, I mean one and the 
same object by my name, and therefore not another object, — 
viz., not the Roman Church. The argument, I repeat, is sound, 
whether the Via Media and the Vicar of St. Mary's be called 
Anglican or Protestant. 

This is a specimen of what my Accuser means by my 
" Economies ; " nay, it is actually one of those special two, 
three, or four, committed after February 1, which he thinks 
sufficient to connect me with the shifty casuists and the double- 
dealing moralists, as he considers them, of the Catholic Church. 
What a " Much ado about nothing ! " 

2. But, whether or no he can prove that I in 1864 have 
committed any logical fault in calling my Sermon on Wisdom 
and Innocence a Protestant Sermon, he is, and has been all 
along, most firm in the belief himself that a Romish Sermon it 
is ; and this is the point on which I wish specially to insist. 
It is for this cause that I made the above extract from his 
Pamphlet, not merely in order to answer him, though, when I 
had made it, I could not pass by the attack on me which it 
contains. I shall notice his charges one by one by and by ; 
but I have made this extract here in order to insist and to 
dwell on this phenomenon — viz., that he does consider it an 



44: TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 

undeniable fact, that the Sermon is "Romish," — meaning by 
" E-omish " not " savouring of Romish doctrine " merely, but 
" the work of a real Romanist, of a conscious Romanist." This 
belief it is which leads him to be so severe on me for now call- 
ing it " Protestant." He thinks that, whether I have commit- 
ted any logical self-contradiction or not, I am very well aware 
that, when I wrote it, I ought to have been elsewhere, that I 
was a conscious Romanist, teaching Romanism ; — or if he 
does not believe this himself, he wishes others to think so, 
which comes to the same thing ; certainly I prefer to consider 
that he thinks so himself, but, if he likes the other hypothesis 
better, he is welcome to it. 

He believes then so firmly that the Sermon was a " Romish 
Sermon," that he pointedly takes it for granted, before he has 
adduced a syllable of proof of the matter of fact. He starts by 
saying that it is a fact to be " remembered." " It must be re- 
memhered always" he says, " that it is not a Protestant, but a 
Romish Sermon," p. 8. Its Romish parentage is a great truth 
for the memory, not a thesis for inquiry. Merely to refer his 
readers to the Sermon is, he considers, to secure them on his 
side. Hence it is that, in his letter of January 18, he said to 
me, " It seems to me, that, by referring publicly to the Sermon 
on which my allegations are founded, I have given every one 
an opportunity of judging of their injustice," that is, an op- 
portunity of seeing that they are transparently just. The no- 
tion of there being a Via Media, held all along by a large par- 
ty in the Anglican Church, and now at least not less than at 
any former time, is too subtle for his intellect. Accordingly, 
he thinks it was an allowable figure of speech,- — not more, I 
suppose, than an " hyperbole," — when referring to a Sermon 
of the Vicar of St. Mary's in the Magazine, to say that it was 
the writing of a Roman Priest ; and as to serious arguments 
to prove the point, why, they may indeed be necessary, as a 
matter of form, in an Act of Accusation, such as his Pam- 
phlet, but they are superfluous to the good sense of any one 
who will only just look into the matter himself. 



TEUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 45 

Now, with respect to tlie so-called arguments which he 
ventures to put forward in proof that the Sermon is Romish, I 
shall answer them, together with all his other arguments, in 
the latter portion of this Reply ; here I do but draw the atten- 
tion of the reader, as I have said already, to the phenomenon 
itself, which he exhibits, of an unclouded confidence that the 
Sermon is the writing of a virtual member of the Roman com- 
munion, and I do so because it has made a great impression 
on my mind, and has suggested to me the course that I shall 
pursue in my answer to him. 

I say, he takes it for granted that the Sermon is the writing 
of a virtual or actual, of a conscious Roman Catholic ; and is im- 
patient at the very notion of having to prove it. Father New- 
man and the Vicar of St. Mary's are one and the same : there 
has been no change of mind in him ; what he believed then he 
believes now, and what he believes now he believed then. To 
dispute this is frivolous ; to distinguish between his past self 
and his present is subtlety, and to ask for proof of their iden- 
tity is seeking opportunity to be sophistical. This writer 
really thinks that he acts a straightforward honest part, when 
he says " A Catholic Priest informs us in his Sermon on Wis- 
dom and Innocence preached at St. Mary's," and he thinks 
that I am the shuffler and quibbler when I forbid him to do 
so. So singular a phenomenon in a man of undoubted ability 
has struck me forcibly, and I shall pursue the train of thought 
which it opens. 

It is not he alone who entertains, and has entertained, such 
an opinion of me and my writings. It is the impression of 
large classes of men ; the impression twenty years ago and the 
impression now. There has been a general feeling that I was 
for years where I had no right to be ; that I Avas a " Roman- 
ist " in Protestant livery and service ; that I was doing the 
work of a hostile Church in the bosom of the English Estab- 
lishment, and knew it, or ought to have known it. There was 
no need of arguing about particular passages in my writings, 
when the fact was so patent, as men thought it to be. 



4:6 TEUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLET. 

First it was certain, and I could not myself deny it, that I 
scouted the name " Protestant." It was certain again, that 
many of the doctrines which I professed were popularly and 
generally known as badges of the Roman Church, as distin- 
guished from the faith of the Reformation. Next, how could 
I have come by them ? Evidently, I had certain friends and 
advisers who did not appear ; there was some underground 
communication between Stonyhurst or Oscott and my rooms 
at Oriel. Beyond a doubt, I was advocating certain doctrines, 
not by accident, but on an understanding with ecclesiastics of 
the old religion. Then men went further, and said that I had 
actually been received into that religion, and withal had leave 
given me to profess myself a Protestant still. Others went 
even further, and gave it out to the world, as a matter of fact, 
of which they themselves had the proof in their hands, that I 
was actually a Jesuit. And when the opinions which I advo- 
cated spread, and younger men went further than I, the feeling 
against me waxed stronger and took a wider range. 

And now indignation arose at the knavery of a conspiracy 
such as this : — and it became of course all the greater, in con- 
sequence of its being the received belief of the public at large, 
that craft and intrigue, such as they fancied they beheld with 
their own eyes, were the very instruments to which the Cath- 
olic Church has in these last centuries been indebted for her 
maintenance and extension. 

There was another circumstance still, which increased the 
irritation and aversion felt by the large classes, of whom I 
have been speaking, as regards the preachers of doctrines, so 
new to them and so unpalatable ; and that was, that they de- 
veloped them in so measured a way. If they were inspired by 
Roman theologians (and this was taken for granted), why 
did they not speak out at once ? Why did they keep the world 
in such suspense and anxiety as to what was coming next, 
and what was to be the upshot of the whole ? Why this reti- 
cence, and half-speaking, and apparent indecision? It was 
plain that the plan of operations had been carefully mapped 



TEUE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY. 4Y 

out from the first, and that these men were cautiously advanc- 
ing towards its accomplishment, as far as was safe at the mo- 
ment ; that their aim and their hope was to carry oif a large 
body with them of the young and the ignorant ; that they 
meant gradually to leaven the minds of the rising generation, 
and to open the gate of that city, of which they were the sworn 
defenders, to the enemy who lay in ambush outside of it. And 
when in spite of the many protestations of the party to the contra- 
ry, there was at length an actual movement among their disciples, 
and one went over to Rome, and then another, the worst anti- 
cipations and the worst judgments which had been formed of 
them received their justification. And, lastly, when men first 
had said of me, " You will- see, lie will go, he is only biding 
his time, he is waiting the word of command from Rome," 
and, when after all, after my arguments and denunciations of 
former years, at length I did leave the Anglican Church for 
the Roman, then they said to each other, "It is just as we 
said : I told you so." 

This was the state of mind of masses of men twenty years 
ago, who took no more than an external and common-sense 
view of what was going on. And partly the tradition, partly 
the effect of that feeling, remains to the present time. Cer- 
tainly I consider that, in my own case, it is the great obstacle 
in the way of my being favourably heard, as at present, when 
I have to make my defence. Not only am I now a member 
of a most un-English communion, whose great aim is consid- 
ered to be the extinction of Protestantism and the Protestant 
Church, and whose means of attack are popularly supposed 
to be unscrupulous cunning and deceit, but besides, how came 
I originally to have any relations with the Church of Rome at 
all? did I, or my opinions, drop from the sky? how came I, 
in Oxford, in gremio Universitatis, to present myself to the 
eyes of men in that full-blown investiture of Popery? How 
eould I dare, how could I have the conscience, with warnings, 
with prophecies, with accusations against me, to persevere in a 
path which steadily advanced towards, which ended in, the 



48 TEUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLET. 

religion of Rome ? And how am I now to be trusted, when 
long ago I was trUvSted, and was found wanting ? 

It is this which is the strength of the case of my Accuser 
against me ; — not his arguments in themselves, which I shall 
easily crumble into dust, but the bias of the court. It is the 
state of the atmosphere ; it is the vibration all around which 
will more or less echo his assertion of my dishonesty ; it is 
that prepossession against me, which takes it for granted that, 
when my reasoning is convincing it is only ingenious, and that 
when my statements are unanswerable, there is always some- 
thing put out of sight or hidden in my sleeve ; it is that plausi- 
ble, but cruel conclusion to which men are so apt to jump, 
that when much is imputed, something must be true, and that 
it is more likely that one should be to blame, than that many 
should be mistaken in blaming him ; — these are the real foes 
which I have to fight, and the auxiliaries to whom my Ac- 
cuser makes his court. 

WeU, I must break through this barrier of prejudice against 
me, if I can ; and I think I shall be able to do so. When first 
I read the Pamphlet of Accusation, I almost despaired of 
meeting eifectively such a heap of misrepresentation and such 
a vehemence of animosity. What was the good of answering 
first one point, and then another, and going through the whole 
circle of its abuse ; when my answer to the first point would 
be forgotten, as soon as I got to the second ? What was the 
use of bringing out half a hundred separate principles or viev/s 
for the refutation of the separate counts in the Indictment, 
when rejoinders of this sort would but confuse and torment the 
reader by their number and their diversity ? What hope was 
there of condensing into a pamphlet of a readable length, mat- 
ter which ought freely to expand itself into half a dozen volumes ? 
What means were there, except the expenditure of interminable 
pages, to set right even one of that series of " single passing 
hints," to use my Assailant's own language, which, " as with 
his finger tip, he had delivered" against me? 

All those separate charges of his had their force in being 



TETJE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY. 4:9 

illustrations of one and the same great imputation. He had a 
positive idea to illuminate his whole matter, and to stamp it 
with a form, and to quicken it with an interpretation. He 
called me a liar^ — a simple, a broad, an intelligible, to the 
English public a plausible arraignment ; but for me, to answer 
in detail charge one by reason one, and charge two by reason 
two, and charge three by reason three, and so to proceed 
through the whole string both of accusations and replies, each 
of which was to be independent of the rest, this would be cer- 
tainly labour lost as regards any effective result. "What I 
needed was a corresponding antagonist unity in my defence, 
and where was that to be found ? We see, in the case of com- 
mentators on the prophecies of Scripture, an exemplification 
of the principle on which I am insisting ; viz., how much more 
powerful even a false interpretation of the sacred text is than 
none at all ; — ^how a certain key to the visions of the Apo- 
calypse, for instance, may cling to the mind — (I have found it 
so in my own case) — mainly because they are positive and 
objective, in spite of the fullest demonstration that they really 
have no claim upon our belief. The reader says, " What else 
can the prophecy mean ?" just as my Accuser asks, "What, 

then, does Dr. Newman mean ? " I reflected, and I 

saw a way out of my perplexity. 

Yes, I said to myself, his very question is about my mean- 
ing ; "What does Dr. Newman mean ?" It pointed in the 
very same direction as that into which my musings had turned 
me already. He asks what I mean ; not about my words, not 
about my arguments, not about my, actions, as his ultimate 
point, but about that living intelligence, by which I write, and 
argue, and act. He asks about my Mind and its Beliefs and 
its Sentiments ; and he shall be answered ; — ^not for his own 
sake, but for mine, for the sake of the Religion which I pro- 
fess, and of the Priesthood in which I am unworthily included, 
and of my friends and of my foes, and of that general public 
which consists of neither one nor the other, but of well- 
wishers, lovers of fair play, sceptical cross-questioners, in- 
3 



50 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MK. KINGSLET. 

terested inquirers, curious lookers-on, and simple strangers, 
unconcerned yet not careless about the issue. 

My perplexity did not last half an hour. I recognized 
what I had to do, though I shrank from both the task and the 
exposure which it would entail. I must, I said, give the true 
key to my whole life ; I must show what I am that it may be 
seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be extinguished 
which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a living 
man, and not as a scarecrow which is di'essed up in my clothes. 
False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true 
ideas alone are they expelled. I will vanquish, not my Ac- 
cuser, but my judges. I will indeed answer his charges and 
criticisms on me one by one, lest any one should say that they 
are unanswerable, but such a work shall not be the scope nor 
the substance of my reply. I will draw out, as far as maybe, 
the history of my mind ; I will state the point at which I be- 
gan, in what external suggestion or accident each opinion had 
its rise, how far and how they were developed from within, 
how they grew, were modified, were combined, were in colli- 
sion with each other, and were changed ; again how I con- 
ducted myself towards them, and how, and how far, and for 
how long a time, I thought I could hold them consistently with 
the ecclesiastical engagements which I had made and with the 
position which I filled. I must show, — ^what is the very truth, 
— that the doctrines which I held, and have held for so many 
years, have been taught me (speaking humanly) partly by 
the suggestions of Protestant friends, partly by the teaching of 
books, and partly by the. action of my own mind : and thus I 
shall account for that phenomenon which to so many seems so 
wonderful, that I should have left " my kindred and my father's 
house" for a Church from which once I turned away with 
dread ; — so wonderful to them ! as if forsooth a Religion which 
has flourished through so many ages, among so many nations, 
amid such varieties of social life, in such contrary classes 
and conditions of paen, and after so many revolutions, po- 
litical and civil, could not subdue the reason and overcome 



TRUE MODE OF MEETINa MR. KINGSLEY. 51 

the heart, without the aid of fraud and the sophistries of the 
schools. 

What I had proposed to myself in the course of half an 
hour, I determined on at the end of ten days. However, I 
have many difficulties in fulfilling my design. How am I to 
say all that has to be said in a reasonable compass ? And then 
as to the materials of my narrative ; I have no autobiographi- 
cal notes to consult, no written explanations of particular 
treatises or of tracts which at the time gave offence, hardly any 
minutes of definite transactions or conversations, and few con- 
temporary memoranda, I fear, of the feelings or motives under 
which from time to time I acted. I have an abundance of 
letters from friends with some copies or drafts of my answers 
to them, but they are for the most part unsorted, and, till this 
process has taken place, they are even too numerous and 
various to be available at a moment for my purpose. Then, 
as to the volumes which I have published, they would in many 
ways serve me, were I well up in them ; but though I took 
great pains in their composition, I have thought little about 
them, when they were at length out of my hands, and, for the 
most part, the last time I read them has been when I revised 
their proof sheets. 

Under these circumstances my sketch will of course be in- 
complete. I now for the first time contemplate my course as 
a whole ; it is a first essay, but it will contain, I trust, no 
serious or substantial mistake, and so far will answer the pur- 
pose for which I write it. I purpose to set nothing down in it 
as certain, for which I have not a clear memory, or some writ- 
ten memorial, or the corroboration of some friend. There are 
witnesses enough up and down the country to verify, or cor- 
rect, or complete it ; and letters moreover of my own in abun- 
dance, unless they have been destroyed. 

Moreover, I mean to be simply personal and historical : 1 
am not expounding Catholic doctrine, I am doing no more than 
explaining myself, and my opinions and actions. I wish, as 



52 TEUE MODE OP MEETING ME. KING8LEY 

far as I am able, simply to state facts, whether they are ulti- 
mately determined to be for me or against me. Of course 
there will be room enough for contrariety of judgment among 
my readers, as to the necessity, or appositeness, or value, or 
good taste, or religious prudence of the details which I shall 
introduce. I may be accused of laying stress on little things, 
of being beside the mark, of going into impertinent or ridi- 
culous details, of sounding my own praise, of giving scandal ; 
but this is a case above all others, in which I am bound to fol- 
low my own lights and to speak out my own heart. It is not 
at all pleasant for me to be egotistical ; nor to be criticized for 
being so. It is not pleasant to reveal to high and low, young 
and old, what has gone on within me from my early years. 
It is not pleasant to be giving to every shallow or flippant dis- 
putant the advantage over me of knowing my most private 
thoughts, I might even say the intercourse between myself and 
my Maker. But I do not like to be called to my face a liar 
and a knave : nor should I be doing my duty to my faith or to 
my name, if I were to suffer it. I know I have done nothing 
to deserve such an insult ; and if I prove this, as I hope to do, 
I must not care for such incidental annoyances as are involved 
in the process. 



PAET III 

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

It may easily be conceived how great a trial it is to me to 
write the following history of myself ; but I must not shrink 
from the task. The words, "Secretum meum mihi," keep 
ringing in my ears ; but as men draw towards their end, they 
care less for disclosures. Nor is it the least part of my trial, 
to anticipate that my friends may, upon first reading what I 
have written, consider much in it irrelevant to my purpose ; 
yet I cannot help thinking that, viewed as a whole, it will ef- 
fect what I wish it to do. 

I was brought up from a child to take great delight in read- 
ing the Bible ; but I had no formed religious convictions till I 
was fifteen. Of course I had perfect knowledge of my Cate- 
chism. 

After I was grown up, I put on paper such recollections as 
I had of my thoughts and feelings on religious subjects, at the 
time that I was a child and a boy. Out of these I select two, 
which are at once the most definite among them, and also have 
a bearing on my later convictions. 

In the paper to which I have referred, written either in 
the Long Vacation of 1820, or in October, 1823, the following 
notices of my school days are sufficiently prominent in my 
memory for me to consider them worth recording : — " I used 



54 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

to wish the Ara.bian Tales were true : my imagination ran on 

unknown influences, on magical powers, and talismans 

I thought life might be a dream, or I an Angel, and all this 
world a deception, my fellow-angels by a playful device con- 
cealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with the sem- 
blance of a material world." 

Again, " E-eading in the Spring of 1816 a sentence from 
[Dr. Watts's] ' Remnants of Time,' entitled ' the Saints un- 
known to the world,' to the effect, that ' there is nothing in 
their figure or countenance to distinguish them,' &c., &c., I 
supposed he spoke of Angels who lived in the world, as it were 
disguised." 

The other remark is this : "I was very superstitious, and 
for some time previous to my conversion " [when I was fif- 
teen] " used constantly to cross myself on going into the dark.". 

Of course I must have got this practice from some external 
source or other ; but I can make no sort of conjecture whence ; 
and certainly no one had ever spoken to me on the subject 
of the Catholic religion, which I only knew by name. The 
French master was an emigre Priest, but he was simply made 
a butt, as French masters too commonly were in that day, and 
spoke English very imperfectly. There was a Catholic family 
in the village, old maiden ladies we used to think ; but I knew 
nothing but their name. I have of late years heard that there 
were one or two Catholic boys in the school ; but either we 
were carefully kept from knowing this, or the knowledge of it 
made simply no impression on our minds. My brother will 
bear witness how free the school was from Catholic ideas. 

I had once been into Warwick Street Chapel, with my father, 
who, I believe, wanted to hear some piece of music ; all that 
I bore away from it was the recollection of a pulpit and a 
preacher and a boy swinging a censer. 

When I was at Littlemore, I was looking over old copy- 
books of my school days, and I found among them my first 
Latin verse-book ; and in the first page of it, there was a 
device which almost took my breath away with surprise. I 



HISTOET OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 55 

have the book before me now, and have jiTst been showing 
it to others. I have written in the first page, in my school- 
boy hand, " JohnH. Newman, February 11th, 1811, Yerse- 
Book ;" then follow my first Verses. Between " Verse" and 
" Book" I have drawn the figure of a solid cross upright, and 
next to it is, what may indeed be meant for a necklace, but 
what I cannot make out to be any thing else than a set of 
beads suspended, with a little cross attached. At this time I 
was not quite ten years old. I suppose I got the idea from 
some romance, Mrs. Radclifie's or Miss Porter's ; or from 
some religious picture ; but the strange thing is, how, among 
the thousand objects which meet a boy's eyes, these in par- 
ticular should so have fixed themselves in my mind, that I 
made them thus practically my own. I am certain there was 
nothing in the churches I attended, or the prayer books I read, 
to suggest them. It must be recollected that churches and 
prayer books were not decorated in those days as I believe 
they are now. 

When I was fourteen, I read Paine's Tracts against the Old 
Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the objections 
which were contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's 
Essays ; and perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave 
my father to understand ; but perhaps it was a brag. Also, I 
recollect copying out some French verses, perhaps Voltaire's, 
against the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself some- 
thing like, "How dreadful, but how plausible ! " 

When I was fifteen (in the autumn of 1816), a great 
change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences 
of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions 
of dogma, which, through God's mercy, have never been 
effaced or obscured. Above and beyond the conversations and 
sermons of the excellent man, long dead, who was the human 
means of this beginning of divine faith in me, was the effect 
of the books which he put into my hands, all of the school of 
Calvin. One of the first books I read, was a work of 
Romaine's ; I neither recollect the title nor the contents, 



56 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

except one doctrine, whicli of course I do not include among 
those which I believe to have come from a divine source, 
viz., the doctrine of final perseverance. I received it at once, 
and believed that the inward conversion of which I was con- 
scious (and of which I still am more certain than that I have 
hands and feet), would last into the next life, and that I was 
elected to eternal glory. I have no consciousness that this be- 
lief had any tendency whatever to lead me to be careless about 
pleasing God. I retained it till the age of twenty-one, when 
it gradually faded away ; but I believe that it had some in- 
fluence on my opinions, in the direction of those childish 
imaginations which I have already mentioned, viz., in isolat- 
ing me from the objects which surrounded me, in confirming 
me in my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena, and 
making me rest in the thought of two and two only supreme 
and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator ; 
— for while I considered myself predestined to salvation, I 
thought others simply passed over, not predestined to eternal 
death. I only thought of the mercy to myself. 

The detestable doctrine last mentioned is simply denied 
and abjured, unless my memory strangely deceives me, by the 
writer who made a deeper impression on my mind than any 
other, and to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul, 
— Thomas Scott of Aston Sandford. I so admired and de- 
lighted in his writings, that, when I was an undergraduate, I 
thought of making a visit to his Parsonage, in order to see a 
man whom I so deeply revered. I hardly think I could have 
given up the idea of this expedition, even after I had taken 
my degree ; for the news of his death in 1821 came upon me 
as a disappointment as well as a sorrow. I hung upon the 
lips of Daniel "Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, as in 
two sermons at St. John's Chapel he gave the history of Scott's 
life and death. I have been possessed of his Essays from 
a boy ; his Commentary I bought when I was an under- 
graduate. 

What, I suppose, will strike any reader of Scott's history 



HISTORY OF MT EELIOIOUS OPINIONS. 57 

and writings, is his bold unworldliness, and vigorous independ- 
ence of mind. He followed truth wherever it led him, be- 
ginning with Unitarianism, and ending in a zealous faith in 
the Holy Trinity. It was he who first planted deep in my 
mind that fundamental Truth of religion. With the assistance 
of Scott's Essays, and the admirable work of Jones of Nay- 
land, I made a collection of Scripture texts in proof of the 
doctrine, with remarks (I think) of my own upon them, be- 
fore I was sixteen ; and a few months later I drew up a series 
of texts in support of each verse of the Athanasian Creed. 
These papers I have still. 

Besides his unworldliness, what I also admired in Scott was 
his resolute opposition to Antinomianism, and the minutely 
practical character of his writings. They show him to be a 
true Englishman, and I deeply felt his influence ; and for years 
I used almost as proverbs what I considered to be the scope 
and issue of his doctrine, " Holiness before peace," and 
" Growth is the only evidence of life." 

Calvinists make a sharp separation between the elect and the 
world ; there is much in this that is parallel or cognate to the 
Catholic doctrine ; but they go on to say, as I understand 
them, very differently from Catholicism, — that the converted 
and the unconverted can be discriminated by man, that the 
justified are conscious of their state of justification, and that 
the regenerate cannot fall away. Catholics on the other hand 
shade and soften the awful antagonism between good and evil, 
which is one of their dogmas, by holding that there are 
different degrees of justification, that there is a great difference 
in point of gravity between sin and sin, that there is the possi- 
bility and the danger of falling away, and that there is no certain 
knowledge given to any one that he is simply in a state of 
grace, and much less that he is to persevere to the end :— of the 
Calvinistic tenets the only one which took root in my mind 
was the fact of heaven and hell, divine favour and divine 
wrath, of the justified and the unjustified. The notion that 
the regenerate and the justified were one and the same, and 
3* 



58 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

that the regenerate, as such, had the gift of perseverance, re- 
mained with me not many years, as I have said already. 

This main Catholic doctrine of the warfare between the city 
of God and the powers of darkness was also deeply impressed 
upon my mind by a work of a very opposite character, Law's 
" Serious CaU." 

From this time I have given a full inward assent and belief 
to the doctrine of eternal punishment, as delivered by our 
Lord Himself, in as true a sense as I hold that of eternal hap- 
piness ; though I have tried in various ways to make that 
truth less terrible to the reason. 

Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep im- 
pression on me in the same autumn of 1816, when I was fifteen 
years old, each contrary to each, and planting in me the seeds 
of an intellectual inconsistency which disabled me for a long 
course of years. I read Joseph Milner's Church History, and 
was nothing short of enamoured of the long extracts from St. 
Augustine and the other Fathers which I found there. I read 
them as being the religion of the primitive Christians : but 
simultaneously with Milner I read Newton on the Prophecies, 
and in consequence became most firmly convinced that the 
Pope was the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, St. Paul, and St. 
John. My imagination was stained by the effects of this doc- 
trine up to the year 1843 ; it had been obliterated from my rea- 
son and judgment at an earlier date ; but the thought remained 
upon me as a sort of false conscience. Hence came that con- 
flict of mind, which so many have felt besides myself ; — lead- 
ing some men to make a compromise between two ideas, so 
inconsistent with each other, — driving others to beat out the 
one idea or the other from their minds, — and ending in my 
own case, after many years of intellectual unrest, in the 
gradual decay and extinction of one of them, — I do not say in 
its violent death, for why should I not have murdered it sooner, 
if I murdered it at all ? 

I am obliged to mention, though I do it with great re- 
luctance, another deep imagination, which at this time, the 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 59 

autumn of 1816, took possession of me, — there can be no mis- 
take about the fact ; — viz., that it was the will of God that I 
should lead a single life. This anticipation, which has held 
its ground almost continuously ever since, — with the break of 
a month now and a month then, up to 1829, and, after that 
date, without any break at all, — was more or less connected, 
in my mind, with the notion that my calling in life would 
require such a sacrifice as celibacy involved ; as, for instance, 
missionary work among the heathen, to which I had a great 
drawing for some years. It also strengthened my feeling 
of separation from the visible world, of which I have spoken 
above. 

In 1822 I came under very different influences from those 
to which I had hitherto been subjected. At that time, Mr. 
Whately, as he was then, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, 
for the few months he remained in Oxford, which he was 
leaving for good, showed great kindness to me. He renewed 
it in 1825, when he became Principal of Alban Hall, making 
me his Vice-Principal and Tutor. Of Dr. Whately I wiU 
speak presently, for from 1822 to 1825 I saw most of the 
present Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, at that time Yicar of 
St. Mary's ; and, when I took orders in 1824 and had a 
curacy at Oxford, then, during the Long Vacations, I was 
especially thrown into his company. I can say with a full 
heart that I love him, and have never ceased to love him ; 
and I thus preface what otherwise might sound rude, that in 
the course of the many years in which we were together after- 
wards, he provoked me very much from time to time, though 
I am perfectly certain that I have provoked him a great deal 
more. Moreover, in me such provocation was unbecoming, 
both because he was the Head of my College, and because in 
the first years that I knew him, he had been in many ways of 
great service to my mind. 

He was the first who taught me to weigh my words, and 
to be cautious in my statements. He led me to that mode of 



60 HISTORY OF MY EELIGHOUS OPINIONS. 

limiting and clearing my sense in discussion and in contro- 
versy, and of distinguishing between cognate ideas, and of 
obviating mistakes by anticipation, which to my surprise has 
been since considered, even in quarters friendly to me, to sa- 
vour of the polemics of Rome. He is a man of most exact 
m.ind himself, and he used to snub me severely, on reading, as 
he was kind enough to do, the first Sermons that I wrote, and 
other compositions which I was engaged upon. 

Then as to doctrine, he was the means of great additions 
to my belief. As I have noticed elsewhere, he gave me the 
" Treatise on Apostolical Preaching," by Sumner, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury, from which I learned to give up 
my remaining Calvinism, and to receive the doctrine of Bap- 
tismal Regeneration. In many other ways too he was of use 
to me, on subjects semi-religious and semi-scholastic. 

It was Dr. Hawkins too who taught me to anticipate that, 
before many years were over, there would be an attack made 
upon the books and the canon of Scripture. I was brought to 
the same belief by the conversation of Mr. Blanco White, 
who also led me to have freer views on the subject of in- 
spiration than were usual in the Church of England at the 
time. 

There is one other principle, which I gained from Dr. 
Hawkins, more directly bearing upon Catholicism, than any 
that I have mentioned ; and that is the doctrine of Tradition. 
When I was an Undergraduate, I' heard him preach in the 
University Pulpit his celebrated sermon on the subject, and 
recollect how long it appeared to me, though he was at that 
time a very striking preacher ; but, when I read it and studied 
it as his gift, it made a most serious impression upon me. 
He does not go one step, I think, beyond the high Anglican 
doctrine, nay he does not reach it ; but he does his work 
thoroughly, and his view was original with him, and his sub- 
ject was a novel one at the time. He lays down a proposi- 
tion, self-evident as soon as stated, to those who have at all 
examined the structure* of Scripture, viz., that the sacred text 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 61 

was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and 
that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the 
formularies of the Church ; for instance to the Catechism, and 
to the Creeds. He considers, that, after learning from them 
the doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify them by 
Scripture. This ^dew, most true in its outline, most fruitful 
in its consequences, opened upon me a large field of thought. 
Dr. Whately held it too. One of its effects was to strike at 
the root of the principle on which the Bible Society was setup. 
I belonged to its Oxford Association ; it became a matter of 
time when I should withdraw my name from its subscription- 
list, though I did not do so at once. 

It is with pleasure that I pay here a tribute to the memory 
of the Eev. William James, then Fellow of Oriel ; who, about 
the year 1823, taught me the doctrine of Apostolical Succes- 
sion, in the course of a walk, I think, round Christ Church 
meadow : I recollect being somewhat impatient on the subject 
at the time. 

It was at about this date, I suppose, that I read Bishop 
Butler's Analogy ; the study of which has been to so many, 
as it was to me, an era in their religious opinions. Its incul- 
cation of a visible Church, the oracle of truth and a pattern of 
sanctity, of the duties of external religion, and of the histori- 
cal character of Revelation, are characteristics of this great 
work which strike the reader at once ; for myself, if I may 
attempt to determine what I most gained from it, it lay in two 
points, which I shall have an opportunity of dwelling on in 
the sequel ; they are the underlying principles of a great por- 
tion of my teaching. First, the very idea of an analogy 
between the separate works of God leads to the conclusion 
that the system which is of less importance is economically or 
sacramentally connected with the more momentous system, and 
of this conclusion the theory, to which I was inclined as a boy, 
viz., the unreality of material phenomena, is an ultimate reso- 
lution. At this time I did not make the distinction between 
matter itself and its phenomena, which is so necessary and so 



62 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

obvious in discussing the subject. Secondly, Butler's doc- 
trine that Probability is the guide of life, led me, at least 
under the teaching to which a few years later I was intro- 
duced, to the question of the logical cogency of Faith, on 
which I have written so much. Thus to Butler I trace 
those two principles of my teaching, which have led to a 
charge against me both of fancifulness and of scepticism. 

And now as to Dr. Whately. I owe him a great deal. 
He was a man of generous and warm heart. He was particu- 
larly loyal to his friends, and to use the common phrase, " all 
his geese were swans." While I was still awkward and 
timid in 1822, he took me by the hand, and acted the part to 
me of a gentle and encouraging instructor. He, emphatically, 
opened my mind, and taught me to think and to use my rea- 
son. After being first noticed by him in 1822, I became very 
intimate with him in 1825, when I was his Vice-Principal at 
Alban Hall. I gave up that office in 1826, when I became 
Tutor of my College, and his hold upon me gradually relaxed. 
He had done his work towards me or nearly so, when he had 
taught me to see with my own eyes and to walk with my own 
feet. Not that I had not a good deal to learn from others 
still, but I influenced them as well as they me, and cooperated 
rather than merely concurred with them. As to Dr. Whately, 
his mind was too different from mine for us to remain long on 
one line. I recollect how dissatisfied he was with an article 
of mine in the London Review, which Blanco White, good- 
humouredly, only called Platonic. When I was diverging 
from him (which he did not like), I thought of dedicating my 
first book to him, in words to the effect that he had not only 
taught me to think, but to think for myself. He left Oxford 
in 1831 ; after that, as far as I can recollect, I never saw him 
but twice, — when he visited the University ; once in the street, 
once in a room. From the time that he left, I have always 
felt a real affection for what I must call his memory ; for 
thenceforward he made himself dead to me. My reason told 
me that it was impossible that we could have got on together 



HISTOEY OF MY RELlGIOrS OPINIONS. 63 

longer ; yet I loved him too much to bid him farewell without 
pain. After a few years had passed, I began to believe that 
his influence on me in a higher respect than intellectual 
advance (I wiU not say through his fault) , had not been satis- 
factory. I believe that he has inserted sharp things in his 
later works about me. They have never come in my way, 
and I have not thought it necessary to seek out what would 
pain me so much in the reading. 

What he did for me in point of religious opinion, was first 
to teach me the existence of the Church, as a substantive body 
or corporation : next to fix in me those anti-Erastian views of 
Church polity, which were one of the most prominent features 
of the Tractarian movement. On this point, and, as far as I 
know, on this point alone, he and Hurrell Froude intimately 
sympathized, though Fronde's development of opinion here 
was of a later date. In the year 1826, in the course of a 
walk he said much to me about a work then just published, 
called " Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian." He said 
that it would make my blood boil. It was certainly a most 
powerful composition. One of our common friends told me 
that, after reading it, he could not keep still, but went on walk- 
ing up and down his room. It v/as ascribed at once to 
Whately ; I gave eager expression to the contrary opinion ; 
but I found the belief of Oxford in the affirmative to be too 
strong for me ; rightly or wrongly I yielded to the general 
voice ; and I have never heard, then or since, of any dis- 
claimer of authorship on the part of Dr. Whately. 

The main positions of this able essay are these : first, that 
Church and State should be independent of each other : — he 
speaks of the duty of protesting " against the profanation of 
Christ's kingdom, by that double usurpation, the interference 
of the Church in temporals, of the State in spirituals," p. 191 ; 
and, secondly, that the Church may justly and by right retain 
its property, though separated from the State. " The clergy," 
he says, p. 133, " though they ought not to be the hired ser- 
vants of the Civil Magistrate, may justly retain their reve- 



64 HISTORY OF MY EELIOIOUS OPIOTONS. 

nues ; and the State, though it has no right of interference in 
spiritual concerns, not only is justly entitled to support from 
the ministers of religion, and from all other Christians, but 
would, under the system I am recommending, obtain it much 
more eiFectually." The author of this work, whoever he may 
be, argues out both these points with great force and ingenuity, 
and with a thoroughgoing vehemence, which perhaps we may 
refer to the circumstance, that he wrote, not in propria per- 
sond^ but in the professed character of a Scotch. Episcopalian. 
His work had a gradual, but a deep effect on my mind. 

I am not aware of any other religious opinion which I owe 
to Dr. Whately. For his special theological tenets I had no 
sympathy. In the next year, 1827, he told me he considered 
that I was Arianizing. The case was this : though at that 
time I had not read Bishop Bull's Defensio nor the Fathers, I 
was just then very strong for that ante-Nicene view of the 
Trinitarian doctrine, which some writers, both Catholic and 
non-Catholic, have accused of wearing a sort of Arian exte- 
rior. This is the meaning of a passage in Froude's Remains, 
in which he seems to accuse me of speaking against the 
Athanasian Creed. I had contrasted the two aspects of the 
Trinitarian doctrine, which are respectively presented by the 
Athanasian Creed and the Nicene. My criticisms were to 
the effect that some of the verses of the former Creed- were 
unnecessarily scientific. This is a specimen of a certain dis- 
dain for antiquity which had been growing on me now for 
several years. It showed itself in some flippant language 
against the Fathers in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, about 
whom I knew little at the time, except what I had learnt as a 
boy from Joseph Milner. In writing on the Scripture Mira- 
cles in 1825— '6, I had read Middleton on the Miracles of the 
early Church, and had imbibed a portion of his spirit. 

The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellectual excel- 
lence to moral ; I was drifting in the direction of liberalism. 
I was rudely awakened from my dream at the end of 1827 by 
two great blows — illness and bereavement. 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 65 

In the beginning of 1829, came the formal break between 
Dr. Whatelj and me ; Mr. Peel's attempted reelection was 
the occasion of it. I think in 1828 or 1827 I had voted in 
the minority, when the Petition to Parliament against the 
Catholic Claims was brought into Convocation. I did so 
mainly on the views suggested to me by the theory of the 
Letters of an Episcopalian. Also I disliked the bigoted " two 
bottle orthodox," as they were invidiously called. I took part 
against Mr. Peel, on a simple academical, not at all an ecclesi- 
astical or a political ground ; and this I professed at the time. 
I considered that Mr. Peel had taken the University by sur- 
prise, that he had no right to call upon us to turn round on a 
sudden, and to expose ourselves to the imputation of time-serv- 
ing, and that a great University ought not to be bullied even 
by a great Duke of Wellington. Also by this time I was 
under the influence of Keble and Froude, who, in addition to 
the reasons I have given, disliked the Duke's change of policy 
as dictated by liberalism. 

Whately was considerably annoyed at me, and he took a hu- 
mourous revenge, of which he had given me due notice be- 
forehand. As head of a house, he had duties of hospitality 
to men of all parties ; he asked a set of the least intellectual 
men in Oxford to dinner, and men most fond of port ; he 
made me one of the party ; placed me between Provost This 
and Principal That, and then asked me if I was proud of my 
friends. However, he had a serious meaning in his act ; he 
saw, more clearly than I could do, that I was separating from 
his own friends for good and all. 

Dr. Whately attributed my leaving his cUentela to a wish 
on my part to be the head of a party myself. I do not think 
that it was deserved. My habitual feeling then and since has 
been, that it was not I who sought friends, but friends who 
sought me. Never man had kinder or more indulgent friends 
than I have had, but I expressed my own feeling as to the 
mode in which I gained them, in this very year 1829, in 
the course of a copy of verses. Speaking of my blessings, I 



66 . HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPmiONS. 

said, " Blessings of friends, which to my door, unasked^ un* 
liojped, have come." They have come, they have gone ; they 
came to my great joy, they went to my great grief. He who 
gave, took away. Dr. Whately's impression about me, how- 
ever, admits of this explanation : — 

During the first years of my residence at Oriel, though 
proud of my College, I was not at home there. I was very 
much alone, and I used often take my daily walk by myself. 
I recollect once meeting Dr. Copleston, then Provost, with one 
of tjie Fellows. He turned round, and with the kind courte- 
ousness' which sat so well on him, made me a bow and said, 
" Nunquam minus solus, quam cum solus." At that time in- 
deed (from 1823) I had the intimacy of my dear and true 
friend Dr. Pusey, and could not fail to admire and revere a 
soul so devoted to the cause of religion, so full of good works, 
BO faithful in his affections ; but he left residence when I 
was getting to know him well. As to Dr. Whately himself, 
he was too much my superior to allow of my being at my 
ease with him ; and to no one in Oxford at this time did I 
open my heart fully and familiarly. But things changed in 
1826. At that time I became one of the Tutors of my Col- 
lege, and this gave me position ; besides, I had written one or 
two Essays, which had been well received. I began to be 
known. I preached my first University Sermon. Next year 
I was one of the Public Examiners for the B. A. degree. It 
was to me like the feeling of spring weather after winter ; 
and, if I may so speak, I came out of my shell ; I remained 
out of it till 1841. 

. The two persons who knew me best at that time are still 
alive, beneficed clergymen, no longer my friends. They could 
tell better than any one else what I was in. those years. From 
this time my tongue was, as it were, loosened, and I spoke 
spontaneously and without effort. A shrewd man, who knew 
me at this time, said, " Here is a man who, when he is silent, 
will never begin to speak ; and when he once begins to speak, 
will never stop." It was at this time that I began to have in- 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 67 

fluence, which steadily increased for a course of years. I 
gained upon my pupils, and was in particular intimate and 
affectionate with two of our probationer Fellows, Robert I. 
Wilberforce (afterwards Archdeacon) and Richard Hurrell 
Froude. Whately then, an acute man, perhaps saw around 
me the signs of an incipient party of which I was not con- 
scious myself. And thus we discern the first elements of that 
movement afterwards called Tractarian. 

The true and primary author of it, however, as is usual 
with great motive-powers, was out of sight. Having carried 
off as a mere boy the highest honours of the University, he 
had turned from the admiration which haunted his steps, and 
sought for a better and holier satisfaction in pastoral work in 
the country. Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble ? 
The first time that I was in a room with him was on occasion 
of my election to a fellowship at Oriel, when I was sent for 
into the Tower, to shake hands with the Provost and Fellows. 
How is that hour fixed in my memory after the changes of 
forty-two years, forty-two this very day on which I write ! I 
have lately had a letter in my hands, which I sent at the time 
to my great friend, John Bowden, with whom I passed almost 
exclusively my Undergraduate years. " I had to hasten to 
the Tower," I say to him, " to receive the congratulations of 
all the Fellows. I bore it till Keble took my hand, and then 
felt so abashed and unworthy of the honour done me, that I 
seemed desirous of quite sinking into the ground." His had 
been the first name which I had heard spoken of, with rever- 
ence rather than admiration, when I came up to Oxford. 
When one day I was walking in High Street with my dear 
earliest friend just mentioned, with what eagerness did he cry 
out, " There's Keble ! " and with what awe did I look at him ! 
Then at another time I heard a Master of Arts of my College 
give an account how he had just then had occasion to introduce 
himself on some business to Keble, and how gentle, courteous, 
and unaffected Keble had been, so as almost to put him out 
of countenance. Then, too, it was reported, truly or falsely, 



68 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 

how a rising man of brilliant reputation, the present Dean of 
St. Paul's, Dr. Milman, admired and loved him, adding, that 
somehow he was unlike any one else. However, at the time 
when I was elected Fellow of Oriel he was not in residence, 
and he was shy of me for years in consequence of the marks 
which I bore upon me of the evangelical and liberal schools. 
At least so I have ever thought. Hurrell Froude brought us 
together about 1828 : it is one of the sayings preserved in his 
" Remains," — " Do you know the story of the murderer who 
had done one good thing in his life ? Well ; if I was ever 
asked what good deed I had ever done, I should say that I had 
brought Keble and Newman to understand each other.'' 

The Christian Year made its appearance in 1827. It is 
not necessary, and scarcely becoming, to praise a book which 
has already become one of the classics of the language. When 
the general tone of religious literature was so nerveless and 
impotent, as it was at that time, Keble struck an original note 
and woke up in the hearts of thousands a new music, the music 
of a school long unknown in England. Nor can I pretend to 
analyse, in my own instance, the effect of religious teaching so 
deep, so pure, so beautiful. I have never till now tried to do 
so ; yet I think I am not wrong in saying, that the two main in- 
tellectual truths which it brought home to me, were the same 
two which I had learned from Butler, though recast in the 
creative mind of my new master. The first of these was what 
may be called, in a large sense of the word, the Sacramental 
system ; that is, the doctrine that material phenomena are both 
the types and the instruments of real things unseen, — a doc- 
trine, which embraces, not only what Anglicans, as well as 
Catholics, believe about Sacraments properly so called ; but 
also the article of " the Communion of Saints" in its fulness ; 
and likewise the Mysteries of the faith. The connexion of this 
philosophy of religion with what is sometimes called ' ' Berke- 
leyism" has been mentioned above ; I knew little of Berkeley 
at this time except by name ; nor have I ever studied him. 

On the second intellectual principle which I gained from 



HISTOEY OF MY EELiaiOUS OPINIONS. 69 

Mr. Keble, I could say a great deal ; if this were the place for 
it. It runs through very much that I have written, and has 
gained for me many hard names. Butler teaches us that prob- 
ability is the guide of life. The danger of this doctrine, in the 
case of many minds, is, its tendency to destroy in them abso- 
lute certainty, leading them to consider every conclusion as 
doubtful, and resolving truth into an opinion, which it is safe 
to obey or to profess, but not possible to embrace with full in- 
ternal assent. If this were to be allowed, then the celebrated 
saying, " O God, if there be a Grod, save my soul, if I have a 
soul ! " would be the highest measure of devotion : — ^but who 
can really pray to a Being, about whose existence he is seri- 
ously in doubt? 

I considered that Mr. Keble met this difficulty by ascribing 
the firmness of assent which we give to religious doctrine, not 
to the probabilities which introduced it, but to the living power 
of faith and love which accepted it. In matters of religion, he 
seemed to say, it is not merely probability which makes us in- 
tellectually certain, but probability as it is put to account by 
faith and love. It is faith and love which give to probability 
a force which it has not in itself. Faith and love are directed 
towards an Object ; in the vision of that Object they live ; it is 
that Object, received in faith and love, which renders it rea- 
sonable to take probability as sufficient for internal conviction. 
Thus the argument about Probability, in the matter of religion, 
became an argument from Personality, which in fact is one 
form of the argument from Authority. 

In illustration, Mr. Keble used to quote the words of the 
Psalm : "I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not like to 
horse and mule, which have no understanding ; whose mouths 
must be held with bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee." 
This is the very difference, he used to say, between slaves, and 
friends or children. Friends do not ask for literal commands ; 
but, from their knowledge of the speaker, they understand his 
half-words, and from love of him they anticipate his wishes. 
Hence it is, that in his Poem for St. Bartholomew's Day, he 



70 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

speaks of the " Eye of God's word ;" and in the note quotes 
Mr. Miller, of Worcester College, who remarks, in his Bampton 
Lectures, on the special power of Scripture, as having " this 
Eye, like that of a portrait, uniformly fixed upon us, turn 
where we will." The view thus suggested by Mr. Keble, is 
brought forward in one of the earliest of the " Tracts for the 
Times." In No. 8 I say, " The Gospel is a Law of Liberty. 
We are treated as sons, not as servants ; not subjected to a 
code of formal commandments, but addressed as those who 
love God, and wish to please Him." 

I did not at all dispute this view of the matter, for I made 
use of it myself ; but I was dissatisfied, because it did not go 
to the root of the difficulty. It was beautiful and religious, 
but it did not even profess to be logical ; and accordingly I 
tried to complete it by considerations of my own, which are 
implied in my University Sermons, Essay on Ecclesiastical 
Miracles, and Essay on Development of Doctrine. My argu- 
ment is in outline as follows : that that absolute certitude which 
we were able to possess, whether as to the truths of natural 
theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result of an 
assemblage of concurring and converging probabilities, and that, 
both according to the constitution of the human mind and the 
will of its Maker ; that certitude was a habit of mind, that 
certainty was a quality of propositions ; that probabilities 
which did not reach to logical certainty, might create a mental 
certitude ; that the certitude thus created might equal in meas- 
ure and strength the certitude which was created by the strict- 
est scientific demonstration ; and that to have such certitude 
might in given cases and to given individuals be a plain duty, 
though not to others in other circumstances : — 

Moreover, that as there were probabilities which sufficed 
to create certitude, so there were other probabilities which 
were legitimately adapted to create opinion ; that it might be 
quite as much a matter of duty in given cases and to given 
persons to have about a fact an opinion of a definite strength 
and consistency, as in the case of greater or of more numerous 



HISTORY OF 3Mnr EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 71 

probabilities it was a duty to have a certitude ; that accord- 
inglj we were bound to be more or less sure, on a sort of (as 
it were) graduated scale of assent, viz., according as the prob- 
abilities attaching to a professed fact were brought home to us, 
and, as the case might be, to entertain about it a pious belief, 
or a pious opinion, or a religious conjecture, or at least a 
tolerance of such belief, or opinion, or conjecture in others ; 
that on the other hand, as it was a duty to have a belief, of 
more or less strong texture, in given cases, so in other cases it 
was a duty not to believe, not to opine, not to conjecture, not 
even to tolerate the notion that a professed fact was true, inas- 
much as it would be credulity or superstition, or some other 
moral fault to do so. This was the region of Private Judg- 
ment in religion ; that is, of a Private Judgment, not formed 
arbitrarily and according to one's fancy or liking, but consci- 
entiously, and under a sense of duty. 

Considerations such as these throw a new light on the sub- 
ject of Miracles, and they seem to have led me to reconsider 
the view which I took of them in my Essay in 1825-'6. I do 
not know what was the date of this change in me, nor of the 
train of ideas on which it was founded. That there had been 
already great miracles, as those of Scripture, as the Resurrec- 
tion, was a fact establishing the principle that the laws of 
nature had sometimes been suspended by their Divine Author ; 
and since what had happened once might happen again, a cer- 
tain probability, at least no kind of improbability, was attached 
to the idea, taken in itself, of miraculous intervention in later 
times, and miraculous accounts were to be regarded in con- 
nexion with the veri-similitude, scope, instrument, character, 
testimony, and circumstances, with which they presented them- 
selves to us ; and, according to the final result of those various 
considerations, it was our duty to be sure, or to believe, or to 
opine, or to surmise, or to tolerate, or to reject, or to denounce. 
The main difference between my Essay on Miracles in 1826 
and my "Essay in 1842 is this : that in 1826 I considered that 
miracles were sharply divided into two classes, those which 



^2 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

were to be received, and those which were to be rejected; 
whereas in 1842 I saw that they were to be regarded accord- 
ing to their greater or less probability, which was in some 
cases sufficient to create certitude about them, in other cases 
only belief or opinion. 

Moreover, the argument from Analogy, on which this view 
of the question was founded, suggested to me something be- 
sides, in recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Miracles. It 
fastened itself upon the theory of Church History which I had 
learned as a boy from Joseph Milner. It is Milner's doctrine, 
that upon the visible Church come down from above, from time 
to time, large and temporary Effusions of divine grace. This 
is the leading idea of his work. He begins by speaking of the 
Day of Pentecost, as marking ''the first of those Effusions of 
the Spirit of God, which from age to age have visited the earth 
since the coming of Christ." Vol. i. p. 3. In a note he adds 
that "in the term ' Effusion ' there is not here included the 
idea of the miraculous or extraordinary operations of the Spirit 
of Grod ; " but still it was natural for me, admitting Milner's 
general theory, and applying to it the principle of analo- 
gy, not to stop short at his abrupt ipse dixit ^ but boldly to pass 
forward to the conclusion, on other grounds plausible, that, as 
miracles accompanied the first effusion of grace, so they might 
accompany the later. It is surely a natural, and on the whole, 
a true anticipation (though of course there are exceptions in 
particular cases) , that gifts and graces go together ; now, ac- 
cording to the ancient Catholic doctrine, the gift of miracles 
was viewed as the attendant and shadow of transcendent sanc- 
tity : and moreover, as such sanctity was not of every day's oc- 
currence, nay further, as one period of Church history differed 
widely from another, and, as Joseph Milner would say, there 
have been generations or centuries of degeneracy or disorder, 
and times of revival, and as one region might be in the mid- 
day of religious fervour, and another in twilight or gloom, 
there was no force in the popular argument, that, because we 
did not see miracles with our own eyes, miracles had not hap- 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 73 

pened in former times, or were not now at this very time tak- 
ing place in distant places : — but I must not dwell longer on a 
subject, to which in few words it is impossible to do justice. 

Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble's, formed by him, and 
in turn reacting upon him. I knew him first in 1826, and was 
in the closest and most affectionate friendship with him from 
about 1829 till his death in 1836. He was a man of the high- 
est gifts — so truly many-sided, that it would be presumptuous 
in me to attempt to describe him, except under those aspects 
in which he came before me. Nor have I here to speak of 
the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the 
free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the 
patient winning considerateness in discussion, which endeared 
him to those to whom he opened his heart ; for I am all along 
engaged upon matters of belief and opinion, and am introduc- 
ing others into my narrative, not for their own sake, or be- 
cause I love and have loved them, so much as because, and so 
far as, they have influenced my theological views. In this 
respect then, I speak of Hurrell Froude — in his intellectual as- 
pect — as a man of high genius, brimful and overflowing with 
ideas and views, in him original, which were too many and 
strong even for his bodily strength, and which crowded and 
jostled against each other in their effort after distinct shape 
and expression. And he had an intellect as critical and logi- 
cal as it was speculative and bold. Dying prematurely, as he 
did, and in the conflict and transition-state of opinion, his re- 
ligious views never reached their ultimate conclusion, by the 
very reason of their multitude and their depth. His opinions 
arrested and influenced me, even when they did not gain my 
assent. He professed openly his admiration of the Church of 
Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. He delighted in the 
notion of an hierarchical system, of sacerdotal power, and of 
full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim, " The 
Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants ; " and 
he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main instrument of re- 
4 



74 HISTOET OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

ligious teaching. He had a high severe idea of the intrinsic 
excellence of Virginity ; and he considered the Blessed Virgin 
its great Pattern. He delighted in thinking of the Saints ; he 
had a keen appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibil- 
ity and its heights ; and he was more than inclined to be- 
lieve a large amount of miraculous interference as occurring 
in the early and middle ages. He embraced the principle of 
penance and mortification. He had a deep devotion to the 
Real Presence, in which he had a firm faith. He was power- 
fully drawn to the Medieval Church, but not to the Primitive. 

He had a keen insight into abstract truth ; but he was an 
Englishman to the backbone in his severe adherence to the 
real and the concrete. He had a most classical taste, and a 
genius for philosophy and art ; and he was fond of historical 
inquiry, and the politics of religion. He had no turn for the- 
ology as such. He had no appreciation of the writings of the 
Fathers, of the detail or development of doctrine, of the definite 
traditions of the Church viewed in their matter, of the teaching 
of the Ecumenical Councils, or of the controversies out of 
which they arose. He took an eager, courageous view of 
things on the whole. I should say that his power of entering 
into the mind of others did not equal his other gifts ; he could 
not believe, for instance, that I really held the Roman Church 
to be Antichristian. On many points he would not believe 
but that I agreed with him, when I did not. He seemed not 
to understand my difficulties. His were of a difierent kind, 
the contrariety between theory and fact. He was a high Tory 
of the Cavalier stamp, and was disgusted with the Toryism of 
the opponents of the Reform Bill. He was smitten with the 
love of the Theocratic Church ; he went abroad and was 
shocked by the degeneracy which he thought he saw in the 
Catholics of Italy. 

It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my the- 
ological creed which I derived from a friend to whom I owe 
so much. He made me look with admiration towards the 
Church of Rome, and in the same degree to dislike the Refor- 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 75 

mation. He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the 
Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in the Real 
Presence. 

There is one remaining source of my opinions to be men- 
tioned, and that far from the least important. In proportion 
as I moved out of the shadow of liberalism which had hung 
over my course, my early devotion towards the Fathers re- 
turned ; and in the Long Vacation of 1828 I set about to read 
them chronologically, beginning with St. Ignatius and St. Jus- 
tin. About 1830 a proposal was made to me by Mr. Hugh 
Rose, who with Mr. Lyall (afterwards Dean of Canterbury) 
was providing writers for a Theological Library, to furnish 
them with a History of the Principal Councils. I accepted it, 
and at once set to work on the Council of Nicaga. It was 
launching myself on an ocean with currents innumerable ; and 
I was drifted back first to the ante-Nicene history, and then to 
the Church of Alexandria. The work at last appeared under 
the title of " The Arians of the Fourth Century ; " and of its 
422 pages, the first 117 consisted of introductory matter, and 
the Council of Nicaea did not appear till the 254th, and then 
occupied at most twenty pages. 

I do not know when I first learnt to consider that Antiqui- 
ty was the true exponent of the doctrines of Christianity and 
the basis of the Church of England ; but I take it for granted 
that Bishop BuU, whose works at this time I read, was my 
chief introduction to this principle. The course of reading 
which I pursued in the composition of my work was directly 
adapted to develop it in my mind. What principally attract- 
ed me in the ante-Nicene period was the great Church of Al- 
exandria, the historical centre of teaching in those times. Of 
Rome for some centuries comparatively little is known. The 
battle of Arianism was first fought in Alexandria ; Athana- 
sius, the champion of the truth, was Bishop of Alexandria ; 
and in his writings he refers to the great religious names of an 
earlier date, to Origen, Dionysius, and others who were the 



76 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTIS OPINIONS. 

glory of its- see, or of its school. The broad philosophy of 
Clement and Origen carried me away ; the philosophy, not the 
theological doctrine ; and I have drawn out some features of it 
in my volume, with the zeal and freshness, but with the par- 
tiality of a neophite. Some portions of their teachings, mag- 
nificent in themselves, came like music to my inward ear, as 
if the response to ideas, which, with little external to encour- 
age them, I had cherished so long. These were based on the 
mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various 
Economies or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood 
them to mean that the exterior world, physical and historical, 
was but the outward manifestation of realities greater than it- 
self. Nature was a parable : * Scripture was an allegory : 
pagan literature, philosophy, and mythology, properly under- 
stood, were but a preparation for the Gospel. The Greek 
poets and sages were in a certain sense prophets ; for 
" thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were giv- 
en." There had been a divine dispensation granted to the 
Jews ; there had been in some sense a dispensation carried on 
in favour of the Gentiles. He who had taken the seed of Ja- 
cob for His elect people, had not therefore cast the rest of 
mankind out of His sight. In the fulness of time both Juda- 
ism and Paganism had come to nought ; the outward frame- 
work, which concealed yet suggested the Living Truth, had 
never been intended to last, and it was dissolving under the 
beams of the Sun of Justice behind it and through it. The 
process of change had been slow ; it had been done not rashly, 
but by rule and measure, " at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners," first one disclosure and then another, till the whole was 
brought into full manifestation. And thus room was made 
for the anticipation of further and deeper disclosures, of truths 
still under the veil of the letter, and in their season to be re- 
vealed. The visible world still remains without its divine in- 
terpretation ; Holy Church in her sacraments and her hier- 

* Vid. Mr. Morris's beautiful poem with this title. 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. TY 

arcMcal appointments, will remain even to the end of the 
world, only a symbol of those heavenly facts which fill eter- 
nity. Her mysteries are but the expressions in human lan- 
guage of truths to which the human mind is unequal. It is 
evident how much there was in all this in correspondence with 
the thoughts which had attracted me when I was young, and 
with the doctrine which I have already connected with the 
Analogy and the Christian Year. 

I suppose it was to the Alexandrian school and to the 
early Church that I owe in gjirticular what I definitely held 
about the Angels. I viewed them, not only as the ministers 
employed by the Creator in the Jewish and Christian dispensa- 
tions, as we find on the face of Scripture, but as carrying on, 
as Scripture also implies, the Economy of the Visible World. 
I considered them as the real causes of motion, light, and life, 
and of those elementary principles of the physical universe, 
which, when ofiered in their developments to our senses, sug- 
gest to us the notion of cause and effect, and of what are called 
the laws of nature. I have drawn out this doctrine in my 
Sermon for Michaelmas day, written not later than 1834. I 
say of the Angels, " Every breath of air and ray of light and 
heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their 
garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see 
God." Again, I ask what would be the thoughts of a man 
who, when examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a. 
ray of light, which he treats as something so beneath him in 
the scale of existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the 
presence of some powerful being who was hidden behind the 
visible things he was inspecting, who, though concealing his 
wise hand, was giving them their beauty, grace, and perfec- 
tion, as being God's instruments for the purpose, nay, whose 
robe and ornaments those objects were, which he was so eager 
to analyze?" and I therefore remark that " we may say with 
grateful and simple hearts with the Three Holy Children, ' O 
all ye works of the Lord, &c., &c., bless ye the Lord, praise 
Him, and magnify Him forever,' " 



78 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I considered there 
was a middle race, Satiiovia, neither in heaven, nor in hell ; 
partially fallen, capricious, wayward ; noble or crafty, be- 
nevolent or malicious, as the case might be. They gave a 
sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes 
of men. Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, 
which is so different often from that of the individuals who 
compose them. Hence the character and the instinct of states 
and governments, of religious communities and communions. 
I thought they were inhabited by unseen intelligences. My 
preference of the Personal to the Abstract would naturally 
lead me to this view. I thought it countenanced by the men- 
tion of " the Prince of Persia " in the Prophet Daniel ; and I 
think I considered that it was of such intermediate beings that 
the Apocalypse spoke, when it introduced " the Angels of the 
Seven Churches." 

In 1837 I made a further development of this doctrine. I 
said to my great friend, Samuel Francis Wood, in a letter 
which came into my hands on his death, " I have an idea. 
The mass of the Fathers (Justin, Athenagoras, Irenseus, Cle- 
ment, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Sulpicius, Ambrose, Na- 
zianzen) hold that, though Satan fell from the beginning, the 
Angels fell before the deluge, falling in love with the daughters 
of men. This has lately come across me as a remarkable so- 
lution of a notion which I cannot help holding. Daniel speaks 
as if each nation had its guardian Angel. I cannot but think 
that there are beings with a great deal of good in them, yet 
with great defects, who are the animating principles of certain 

institutions, &c., &c Take England, with many high 

virtues, and yet a low Catholicism. It seems to me that John 
Bull is a spirit neither of heaven nor hell. . . Has not the 
Christian Church, in its parts, surrendered itself to one or 
other of these simulations of the truth ? . . . . How are we to 
avoid Scylla and Charybdis and go straight on to the very 
image of Christ?" &c., &c. 

I am aware that what I have been saying will, with 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 79 

many men, be doing credit to my imagination at the ex- 
pense of my judgment — " Hippoclides doesn't care ;" I am 
not setting myself up as a pattern of good sense or of any 
thing else : I am but vindicating myself from the charge of 
dishonesty. There is indeed another view of the Economy 
brought out, in the course of the same dissertation on the sub- 
ject, in my History of the Arians, which has afforded matter 
for the latter imputation ; but I reserve it for the concluding 
portion of my Reply. 

While I was engaged in writing my work upon the Arians, 
great events were happening at home and abroad, which 
brought out into form and passionate expression the various 
beliefs which had so gradually been winning their way into 
my mind. Shortly before, there had been a Revolution in 
France ; the Bourbons had been dismissed : and I believed 
that it was unchristian for nations to cast off their governors, 
and, much more, sovereigns who had the divine right of in- 
heritance. Again, the great Reform Agitation was going on 
around me as I wrote. The Whigs had come into power ; 
Lord Grey had told the Bishops to set their house in order, 
and some of the Prelates had been insulted and threatened in 
the streets of London. The vital question was how were we 
to keep the Church from being liberalized? there was such 
apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in 
others ; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so radi- 
cally decayed, and there was such distraction in the Councils 
of the Clergy. The Bishop of London of the day, an active 
and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in diluting 
the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the 
Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had 
deeply offended men who agreed with myself, by an off-hand 
saying (as it was reported) to the effect that belief in the 
Apostolical succession had gone out with the Non-jurors. 
" We can count you," he said to some of the gravest and most 
venerated persons of the old school. And the Evangelical 



80 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

party itself seemed, with their late successes, to have lost that 
simplicity and unworldliness which I admired so much in 
Milner and Scott. It was not that I did not venerate such 
men as the then Bishop of Lichfield, and others of similar 
sentiments, who were not yet promoted out of the ranks of the 
Clergy, but I thought little of them as a class. I thought 
they played into the hands of the Liberals. With the Estab- 
lishment thus divided and threatened, thus ignorant of its true 
strength, I compared that fresh vigorous power of which I was 
reading in the first centuries. In her triumphant zeal on be- 
half of that Primeval Mystery, to which I had had so great a 
devotion from my youth, I recognized the movement of my 
Spiritual Mother. " Incessu patuit Dea." The self-conquest 
of her Ascetics, the patience of her Martyrs, the irresistible 
determination of her Bishops, the joyous swing of her advance, 
both exalted and abashed me. I said to myself, " Look on 
this picture and on that ; " I felt affection for my own Church, 
but not tenderness ; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and 
scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that if Liberal- 
ism once got a footing wkhin her, it was sure of the victory 
in the event. I saw that Reformation principles were power- 
less to rescue her. As to leaving her, the thought never 
crossed my imagination ; still I ever kept before me that there 
was something greater than the Established Church, and that 
that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, set up from the 
beginning, of which she was but the local presence and organ. 
She was nothing tmless she was this. She must be dealt 
with strongly, or she would be lost. There was need of a 
second Reformation. 

At this time I was disengaged from College duties, and my 
health had suffered from the labor involved in the composition 
of my Volume. It was ready for the Press in July, 1832, though 
not published till the end of 1833. I was easily persuaded to 
join Hurrell Froude and his Father, who were going to the 
South of Europe for the health of the former. 

We set out in December, 1832. It was during this expedi- 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 81 

tion that my Verses which are in the Lyra Apostolica were 
written ; — a few indeed before it, but not more than one or two 
of them after it. Exchanging, as I was, definite Tutorial 
labours, and the literary quiet and pleasant friendships of the 
last six years, for foreign countries and an unknown future, I 
naturally was led to think that some inward changes, as well 
as some larger course of action, was coming upon me. At 
Whitchurch, while waiting for the down mail to Falmouth, 
I wrote the verses about my Guardian Angel, which begin 
with these words : " Are these the tracks of some unearthly 
Friend?" and go on to speak of "the vision" which haunted 
me : — that vision is more or less brought out in the whole 
series of these compositions. 

I went to various coasts of the Mediterranean, parted with 
my friends at Rome ; went down for the second time to Sicily, 
at the end of April, and got back to England by Palermo in 
the early part of July. The strangeness of foreign life threw 
me back into myself; I found pleasure in historical sites and 
beautiful scenes, not in men and manners. We kept clear of 
Catholics throughout our tour. I had a conversation with the 
Dean of Malta, a most pleasant man, lately dead ; but it was 
about the Fathers, and the Library of the great church. I 
knew the Abbate Santini, at Rome, who did no more than 
copy for me the Gregorian tones. Froude and I made two 
calls upon Monsignore (now Cardinal) Wiseman at the CoUegio 
Inglese, shortly before we left Rome. I do not recollect being 
in a room with any other ecclesiastics, except a Priest at 
Castro-Giovanni in Sicily, who called on me when I was ill, 
and with whom I wished to hold a controversy. As to Church 
Services, we attended the Tenebrae, at the Sestine, for the 
sake of the Miserere ; and that was all. My general feeling 
was, '^ All, save the spirit of man, is divine." I saw nothing 
but what was external ; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew 
nothing. I was still more driven back into myself, and felt 
my isolation. England was in my thoughts solely, and the 
news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The Bill 
4* 



82 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

for the Suppression of the Irish Sees was in progress, and 
filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals. 

It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me 
inwardly. I became fierce against its instruments and its 
manifestations. A French vessel was at Algiers ; I would not 
even look at the tricolour. On my return, though forced to 
stop a day at Paris, I kept indoors the whole time, and all 
that I saw of that beautiful city was what I saw from the 
Diligence. The Bishop of London had already sounded me as 
to my filling one of the Whitehall preacherships, which he 
had just then put on a new footing ; but I was indignant at the 
line which he was taking, and from my Steamer I had sent home 
a letter declining the appointment by anticipation, should it be 
offered to me. At this time I was specially annoyed with Dr. 
Arnold, though it did not last into later years. Some one, I 
think, asked in conversation at Rome, whether a certain inter- 
pretation of Scripture was Christian? it was answered that 
Dr. Arnold took it; I interposed, "But is he a Christian?" 
The subject went out of my head at once ; when afterwards I 
was taxed with it I could say no more in explanation, than 
that I thought I must have been alluding to some free views 
of Dr. Arnold about the Old Testament : — I thought I must 
have meant, " But who is to answer for Arnold?" It was at 
Rome, too, that we began the Lyra Apostolica which appeared 
monthly in the British Magazine. The motto shows the feel- 
ing of both Froude and myself at the time : we borrowed 
from M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude chose the words in 
which Achilles, on returning to the battle, says, " You shall 
know the difference, now that I am back again." 

Especially when I was left by myself, the thought came 
upon me that deliverance is wrought, not by the many, but by 
the few, not by bodies, but by persons. Now it was, I think, 
that I repeated to myself the words, which had ever been dear 
to me from my school-days, " Exoriare aliquis ! " — now, too, 
that Southey's beautiful poem of Thalaba, for which I had an 
immense liking, came forcibly to my mind. I began to think 
that I had a mission. There are sentences of my letters to 



HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 83 

my friends to this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we 
took leave of Monsignore Wiseman, he had courteously ex- 
pressed a wish that we might make a second visit to Rome ; I 
said with great gravity, " We have a work to do in England." 
I went doT\Ti at once to Sicily, and the presentiment grew 
stronger. I struck into the middle of the island, and fell ill of 
a fever at Leonforte. My servant thought that I was dying, 
and begged for my last directions. I gave them, as he wished ; 
but I said, " I shall not die." I repeated, " I shall not die, for 
I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned against light." 
I never have been able to make out at all what I meant. 

I got to Castro-Giovanni, and was laid up there for nearly 
three weeks. Towards the end of May, I set off for Palermo, 
taking three days for the journey. Before starting from my 
inn in the morning of May 26th or 27th, I sat down on my 
bed, and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted 
as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, " I 
have a work to do in England." 

I was aching to get home ; yet for want of a vessel I was 
kept at Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit the 
Churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not 
attend any services. I knew nothing of the Presence of the 
Blessed Sacrament there. At last I got off in an orange boat, 
bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed a whole week in 
the Straits of Bonifacio. Then it was that I wrote the lines, 
" Lead, kindly light," which have since become well known. 
I was writing verses the whole time of my passage. At length 
I got to Marseilles, and set off for England. The fatigue of 
travelling was too much for me, and I was laid up for several 
days at Lyons. At last I got off again, and did not stop night 
or day till I reached England, and my mother's house. My 
brother had arrived from Persia only a few hours before. 
This was on the Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14th, 
Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University 
Pulpit. It was published under the title of " National Apos- 
tasy." I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start 
of the relio;ious movement of 1833. 



PAKT IV. 

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

In spite of the foregoing pages, I have no romantic story 
to tell ; but I wrote them, because it is my duty to tell things 
as they took place. I have not exaggerated the feelings with 
which I returned to England, and I have no desise to dress up 
the events which followed, so as to make them in keeping with 
the narrative which has gone before. I soon relapsed into the 
every-day life which I had hitherto led ; in all things the 
same, except that a new object was given me. I had em- 
ployed myself in my own rooms in reading and writing, and 
in the care of a Church, before I left England, and I returned 
to the same occupations when I was back again. And yet 
perhaps those first vehement feelings which carried me on 
were necessary for the beginning of the Movement ; and 
afterwards, when it was once begun, the special need of me 
was over. 

When I got home from abroad, I found that already a 
movement had commenced in opposition to the specific danger 
which at that time was threatening the religion of the nation 
and its Church. Several zealous and able men had united 
their counsels, and were in correspondence with each other. 
The principal of these were Mr. Keble, Hurrell Froude, who 
had reached home long before me, Mr. William Palmer of 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 85 

Dublin and Worcester College (not Mr. W. Palmer of Magda- 
len, who is now a Catholic), Mr. Arthur Perceval, and Mr. 
Hugh Rose. 

To mention Mr. Hugh Rose's name is to kindle in the 
minds of those who knew him, a host of pleasant and affec- 
tionate remembrances. He was the man above all others 
fitted by his cast of mind and literary powers to make a stand, 
if a stand could be made, against the calamity of the times. 
He was gifted with a high and large mind, and a true sensi- 
bility of what was great and beautiful ; he wrote with warmth 
and energy ; and he had a cool head and cautious judgment. 
He spent his strength and shortened his life. Pro Ecclesia Dei, 
as he understood that sovereign idea. Some years earlier he 
had been the first to give warning, I think from the University 
Pulpit at Cambridge, of the perils to England which lay in the 
biblical and theological speculations of Grermany. The Re- 
form agitation followed, and the Whig Government came into 
power ; and he anticipated in their distribution of Church 
patronage the authoritative introduction of liberal opinions into 
the country : — ^by " liberal" I mean liberalism in religion^ for 
questions of politics, as such, do not come into this narrative 
at all. He feared that by the Whig party a door would l^e 
opened in England to the most grievous of heresies, which 
never could be closed again. In order under siich grave cir- 
cumstances to unite Churchmen together, and to make a front 
against the coming danger, he had in 1832 commenced the 
British Magazine, and in the same year he came to Oxford in 
the summer term, in order to beat up for writers for his publi- 
cation ; on that occasion I became known to him through Mr. 
Palmer. His reputation and position came in aid of his obvi- 
ous fitness, in point of character and intellect, to become the 
centre of an ecclesiastical movement, if such a movement 
were to depend on the action of a party. His delicate health, 
his premature death, would have frustrated the expectation, 
even though the new school of opinion had been more exactly 
thrown into the shape of a party, than in fact was the case. 



Ob HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

But he zealously backed up the first efforts of those who were 
principals in it ; and, when he wentoabroad to die, in 1838, he 
allowed me the solace of expressing my feelings of attachment 
and gratitude to him by addressing him, in the dedication of a 
volume of my Sermons, as the man, "who, when hearts were 
failing, bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake 
ourselves to our true Mother." 

But there were other reasons, besides Mr. Eose's state of 
health, which hindered those who so much admired him from 
availing themselves of his close cooperation in the coming 
fight. United as both he and they were in the general scope 
of the Movement, they were in discordance with each other 
from the first in their estimate of the means to be adopted for 
attaining it. Mr. Rose had a position in the Church, a name 
and serious responsibilities ; he had direct ecclesiastical su- 
periors ; he had intimate relations with his own University, 
and a large clerical connexion through the country. Froude 
and I were nobodies ; with no characters to lose, and no ante- 
cedents to fetter us. Rose could not go ahead across country, 
as Froude had no scruples in doing. Froude was a bold rider, 
as on horseback, so also in his speculations. After a long 
conversation with him on the logical bearing of his principles, 
Mr. Rose said of him with quiet humour, that "he did not 
seem *to be afraid of inferences." It was simply the truth ; 
Froude had that strong hold of first principles, and that keen 
perception of their value, that he was comparatively indiffer- 
ent to the revolutionary action which would attend on their 
application to a given state of things ; whereas in the thoughts 
of Rose, as a practical man, existing facts had the precedence 
of every other idea, and the chief test of the soundness of a 
line of policy lay in the consideration whether it would work. 
This was one of the first questions which, as it seemed to me, 
ever occurred to his mind. With Froude, Erastianism, — that 
is, the union (so he viewed it) of Church and State, — was the 
parent, or if not the parent, the serviceable and sufiicient tool, 
of liberalism. Till that union was snapped. Christian doctrine 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 87 

never could be safe ; and, while lie well knew how high and 
unselfish was the temper of Mr. Rose, yet he used to apply to 
him an epithet, reproachful in his own mouth : — Rose was a 
" conservative." By bad luck, I brought out this word to Mr. 
Rose in a letter of my own, which I wrote to him in criticism 
of something he had inserted into the Magazine : I got a vehe- 
ment rebuke for my pains, for though Rose pursued a conser- 
vative line, he had as high a disdain, as Froude could have, of 
a worldly ambition, and an extreme sensitiveness of such an 
imputation. 

But there was another reason still, and a more elementary 
one, which severed Mr. Rose from the Oxford Movement. 
Living movements do not come of committees, nor are great 
ideas worked out through the post, even though it had been 
the penny post. This principle deeply penetrated both Froude 
and myself from the first, and recommended to us the course 
which things soon took spontaneously, and without set purpose 
of our own. Universities are the natural centres of intellectual 
movements. How could men act together, whatever was their 
zeal, unless they were united in a sort of individuality ? Now, 
first, we had no unity of place. Mr. Rose was in Suffolk, Mr. 
Perceval in Surrey, Mr. Keble in Grloucestershire ; Hurrell 
Froude had to go for his health to Barbados. Mr. Palmer, 
indeed, was in Oxford ; this was an important f^-dvantage, and 
told well in the first months of the Movement ; but another con- 
dition, besides that of place, was required. 

A far more essential unity was that of antecedents, — a 
common history, common memories, an intercourse of mind 
with mind in the past, and a progress and increase of that in- 
tercourse in the present. Mr. Perceval, to be sure, was a 
pupil of Mr. Keble's ; but Keble, Rose, and Palmer, represented 
distinct parties, or at least tempers, in the Establishment. Mr. 
Palmer had many conditions of authority and influence. He 
was the only really learned man among us. He understood 
theology as a science ; he was practised in the scholastic mode 
of controversial writing ; and I believe, was as well acquainted, 



88 HISTORY OF MY EELiaiOUS OPINIONS. 

as he was dissatisfied, with the Catholic schools. He was as 
decided in his religious views, as he was cautious and even 
subtle in their expression, and gentle in their enforcement. 
But he was deficient in depth ; and besides, coming from a dis- 
tance, he never had really grown into an Oxford man, nor was 
he generally received as such ; nor had he any insight into the 
force of personal influence and congeniality of thought in car- 
rying out a religious theory, — a condition which Froude and I 
considered essential to any true success in the stand which had 
to be made against Liberalism. Mr. Palmer had a certain 
connexion, as it may be called, in the Establishment, consist- 
ing of high Church dignitaries, Archdeacons, London Rectors, 
and the like, who belonged to what was commonly called the 
high-and-dry school. They were far more opposed than even 
he was to the irresponsible action of individuals. Of course 
their heau ideal in ecclesiastical action was a board of safe, 
sound, sensible men. Mr. Palmer was their organ and repre- 
sentative ; and he wished for a Committee, an Association, 
with rules and meetings, to protect the interests of the Church 
in its existing peril. He was in some measure supported by 
Mr. Perceval. 

I, on the other hand, had out of my own head begun the 
Tracts : and these, as representing the antagonist principle of 
personality, were looked upon by Mr. Palmer's friends with 
considerable alarm. The great point at the time with these 
good men in London, — some of them men of the highest prin- 
ciple, and far from influenced by what we used to call Erasti- 
anism, — was to put down the Tracts. I, as their editor, and 
mainly their author, was not unnaturally willing to give way. 
Keble and Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and 
were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer 
shared the anxiety of his own friends ; and, kind as were his 
thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his 
own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel 
friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, 
took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 89 

bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalized 
him considerably. As for me, there was matter enough in the 
early Tracts to give him equal disgust ; and doubtless I much 
tasked his generosity, when he had to defend me, whether 
against the London dignitaries, or the country clergy. Oriel, 
from the time of Dr. Copleston to Dr. Hampden, had had a 
name far and wide for liberality of thought ; it had received a 
formal recognition from the Edinburgh Review, if my memory 
serves me truly, as the school of speculative philosophy in 
England ; and on one occasion, in 1833, when I presented my- 
self, with some of the first papers of the Movement, to a coun- 
try clergyman in Northamptonshire, he paused awhile, and 
then, eyeing me with significance, asked, " Whether Whately 
was at the bottom of them ? " 

Mr. Perceval wrote to me in support of the judgment of 
Mr. Palmer and the dignitaries. I replied in a letter, which 
he afterwards published. "As to the Tracts," I said to him 
(I quote my own words from his Pamphlet) , " every one has his 
own taste. You object to some things, another to others. If 
we altered to please every one, 'the effect would be spoiled. 
They were not intended as symbols h catliedrd, but as the ex- 
pression of individual minds ; and individuals, feeling strongly, 
while, on the one hand, they are incidentally faulty in mode or 
language, are still peculiarly effective. No great work was 
done by a system ; whereas systems rise out of individual ex- 
ertions. Luther was an individual. The very faults of an 
individual excite attention ; he loses, but his cause (if good and 
he powerful-minded) gains. This is the way of things : we 
promote truth by a self-sacrifice." 

The visit which I made to the Northamptonshire Rector 
was only one of a series of similar expedients, which I adopted 
during the year 1833. I called upon clergy in various parts 
of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not, 
and I attended af the houses of friends where several of them 
were from time to time assembled. I do not think that much 
came of such attempts, nor were they quite in my way. Also 



90 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPmiONS. 

I wrote various letters to clergymen, which fared not much 
better, except that they advertised the fact, that a rally in 
favour of the Church was commencing. I did not care whether 
my visits were made to high Church or low Church ; I wished 
to make a strong pull in union with all who were opposed to 
the principles of liberalism, whoever they might be. Giving 
my name to the Editor, I commenced a series of letters in the 
Record Newspaper : they ran to a considerable length ; and 
were borne by him with great courtesy and patience. They 
were headed as being on " Church Reform." The first was on 
the Revival of Church Discipline ; the second, on its Scripture 
proof ; the third, on the application of the doctrine ; the fourth, 
was an answer to objections ; the fifth, was on the benefits of 
discipline. And then the series was abruptly brought to a 
termination. I had said what I really felt, and what was also 
in keeping with the strong teaching of the Tracts, but I sup- 
pose the Editor discovered in me some divergence from his 
own line of thought ; for at length he sent a very civil letter, 
apologizing for the non-appearance of my sixth communication, 
on the ground that it contained an attack upon " Temperance 
Societies," about which he did not wish a controversy in his 
columns. He added, however, his serious regret at the char- 
acter of the Tracts. I had subscribed a small sum in 1828 to- 
wards the first start of the Record. 

Acts of the officious character which I have been describ- 
ing, were uncongenial to my natural temper, to the genius of 
the Movement, and to the historical mode of its success : — they 
were the fruit of that exuberant and joyous energy with which 
I had returned from abroad, and which I never had before or 
since. I had the exultation of health restored, and home re- 
gained. While I was at Palermo and thought of the breadth 
of the Mediterranean, and the wearisome journey across France, 
I could not imagine how I was ever to get to England ; but 
now I was amid familiar scenes 'and faces once more. And 
my health and strength came back to me with such a rebound, 
that some friends at Oxford, on seeing me, did not well know 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 91 

that it was I, and hesitated before they spoke to me. And I 
had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which 
I had been dreaming about, and which I felt to be so moment- 
ous and inspiring. I had a supreme confidence in our cause ; 
we were upholding that primitive Christianity which was de- 
livered for all time by the early teachers of the Church, and 
which was registered and attested in the Anglican formularies 
and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had well 
nigh faded away out of the land, through the political changes 
of the last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be in 
fact a second Reformation : — a better reformation, for it would 
be a return not to the sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. 
No time was to be lost, for the Whigs had come to do their 
worst, and the rescue might come too late. Bishopricks were 
already in course of suppression ; Church property was in 
course of confiscation ; Sees would soon be receiving unsuita- 
ble occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching upon, 
and there was no one else to preach. I felt as on a vessel, 
which first gets under weigh, and then the deck is cleared out, 
and the luggage and live stock stored away into their proper 
receptacles. 

Nor was it only that I had confidence in our cause, both in 
itself, and in its controversial force, but besides, I despised 
every rival system of doctrine and its arguments. As to the 
high Church and the low Church, I thought that the one had 
not much more of a logical basis than the other ; while I had 
a thorough contempt for the evangelical. I had a real respect 
for the character of many of the advocates of each party, but 
that did not give cogency to their arguments ; and I thought 
on the other hand that the Apostolical form of doctrine was 
essential and imperative, and its grounds of evidence impreg- 
nable. Owing to this confidence, it came to pass at that time, 
that there was a double aspect in my bearing towards others, 
which it is necessary for nie to enlarge upon. My behaviour 
had a mixture in it both of fierceness and of sport ; and on this 
account, I dare say, it gave offence to many ; nor am I here 
defending it. 



92 IIISTOKY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

I wished men to agree with me, and I walked with them 
step by step, as far as they would go ; this I did sincerely ; 
but if they would stop, I did not much care about it, but 
walked on, with some satisfaction that I had brought them so 
far. I liked to make them preach the truth without knowing 
it, and encouraged them to do so. It was a satisfaction to me 
that the Record had allowed me to say so much in its columns, 
without remonstrance. I was amused to hear of one of the 
Bishops, who, on reading an early Tract on the Apostolical 
Succession, could not make up his mind whether he held the 
doctrine or not. I was not distressed at the wonder or anger 
of dull and self-conceited men, at propositions which they 
did not understand. When a correspondent, in good faith, 
wrote to a newspaper, to say that the " Sacrifice of the Holy 
Eucharist," spoken of in the Tract, was a false print for " Sac- 
rament," I thought the mistake too pleasant to be corrected 
before J was asked about it. I was not unwilling to draw an 
opponent on step by step to the brink of some intellectual ab- 
surdity, and to leave him to get back as he could. I was not 
unwilling to play with a man, who asked me impertinent ques- 
tions. I think I had in my mouth the words of the Wise man, 
" Answer a fool according to his folly," especially if he was 
prying or spiteful. I was reckless of the gossip which was 
circulated about me ; and, when I might easily have set it 
right, did not deign to do so. Also I used irony in conversa- 
tion, when matter-of-fact men would not see what I meant. 

This kind of behaviour was a sort of habit with me. If I 
have ever trifled with my subject, it was a more serious fault. 
I never used arguments which I saw clearly to be unsound. 
The nearest approach which I remember to such conduct, but 
which I consider was clear of it nevertheless, was in the case 
of Tract 15. The matter of this Tract was supplied to me by 
a friend, to whom I had applied for assistance, but who did 
not wish to be mixed up with the publicatiou. He gave it 
me, that I might throw it into shape, and I took his arguments 
as they stood. In the chief portion of the Tract I fully 



HISTORY OF MT RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 93 

agreed ; for instance, as to what it says about the Council of 
Trent ; but there were arguments, or some argument, in it which 
I did not follow ; I do not recollect what it was. Froude, I 
think, was disgusted with the whole Tract, and accused me of 
economy in publishing it. It is principally through Mr. Froude^s 
Remains that this word has got into ojir language. I think, I 
defended myself with arguments such as these : — that, as every 
one knew, the Tracts were written by various persons who 
agreed together in their doctrine, but not always in the argu- 
ments by which it was tojbe proved ; that we must be tolerant 
of difference of opinion among ourselves ; that the author of 
the Tract had a right to his own opinion, and that the argu- 
ment in question was ordinarily received ; that I did not give my 
own name or authority, nor was asked for my personal belief, 
but only acted instrumentally, as one might translate a friend's 
book into a foreign language. I account these to be good ar- 
guments ; nevertheless I feel also that such practices admit of 
easy abuse and are consequently dangerous ; but then again, 
I feel also this — that if all such mistakes were to be severely 
visited, not many men in public life would be left with a char- 
acter for honour and honesty. 

This absolute confidence in my cause, which led me to the 
imprudence or wantonness which I have been instancing, also 
laid me open, not unfairly, to the opposite charge of fierceness 
in certain steps which I took, or words which I published. In 
the Lyra Apostolica, I have said that, before learning to love, 
we must '• learn to hate ; " though I had explained my words 
by adding " hatred of sin." In one of my first Sermons I 
said, '^ I do not shrink from uttering my firm conviction that 
it would be a gain to the country were it vastly more supersti- 
tious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion- 
than at present it shows itself to be." I added, of course, 
that it would be an absurdity to suppose such tempers of mind 
desirable in themselves. The correcter of the press bore these 
strong epithets till he got to " more fierce," and then he put in 
the margin a query. In the very first page of the first Tract, 



94: HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

I said of the Bishops, that, " black event though it would be 
for the couutry, yet we could not wish them a more blessed 
termination of their course, than the spoiling of their goods 
and martyrdom," In consequence of a passage in my work 
upon the Arian History, a Northern dignitary wrote to accuse 
me of wishing to reestablish the blood and torture of the In- 
quisition. Contrasting heretics and heresiarchs, I had said, 
" The latter should meet with no mercy ; he assumes the office 
of the Tempter, and, so far forth as his error goes, must 
be dealt with by the competent authority, as if he Avere em- 
bodied evil. To spare him is a false and dangerous pity. It 
is to endanger the souls of thousands, and it is uncharitable 
towards himself." I cannot deny that this is a very fierce pas- 
sage ; but Arius was banished, not burned ; and it is only fair to 
myself to say that neither at this, nor any other time of my life, 
not even when I was fiercest, could I have even cut off a Puri- 
tan's ears, and I think the sight of a Spanish auto-da-fe would 
have been the death of me. Again, when one of my friends, 
of liberal and evangelical opinions, wrote to expostulate with 
me on the course I was taking, I said that we would ride over 
him and his, as Othniel prevailed over Chushan-rishathaim, 
king of Mesopotamia. Again, I would have no dealings with 
my brother, and I put my conduct upon a syllogism. I said, 
" St. Paul bids us avoid those who cause divisions ; you cause 
divisions : therefore I must avoid you." I dissuaded a lady 
from attending the marriage of a sister who had seceded from 
the Anglican Church. No wonder that Blanco White, who 
had known me under such different circumstances, now hear- 
ing the general course that I was taking, was amazed « at the 
change which he recognized in me. He speaks bitterly and 
unfairly of me in his letters contemporaneously with the first 
years of the Movement ; but in 1839, when looking back, he 
uses terms of me, which it would be hardly modest in me to 
quote, were it not that what he says of me in praise is but 
part of a whole account of me. He says : "In this party 
[the anti-Peel, in 1829] I found, to my great surprise, my 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 95 

dear friend, Dr. Newman, of Oriel. As lie had been one of 
the annual Petitioners to Parliament for Catholic Emancipa- 
tion, his sudden union with the most violent bigots was inex- 
plicable to me. That change was the first manifestation of 
the mental revolution, which has suddenly made him one of 
the leading persecutors of Dr. Hampden, and the most active 
and influential member of that association, called the Puseyite 
party, from which we have those very strange productions, en- 
titled. Tracts for the Times. While stating these public facts, 
my heart feels a pang at the recollection of the affectionate 
and mutual friendship between that excellent man and myself ; 
a friendship, which his principles of orthodoxy could not al- 
low him to continue in regard to one, whom he now regards 
as inevitably doomed to eternal perdition. Such is the venom- 
ous character of orthodoxy. What mischief must it create 
in a bad heart and narrow mind, when it can work so effectu- 
ally for evil, in one of the most benevolent of bosoms, and one 
of the ablest of minds, in the amiable, the intellectual, the re- 
fined John Henry Newman ! " (Vol. iii., p. 131.) He adds 
that I would have nothing to do with him, a circumstance 
which I do not recollect, and very much doubt. 

I have spoken of my firm confidence in my position ; and 
now let me state more definitely what the position was which 
I took up, and the propositions about which I was so confident. 
These were three : — 

1. First was the principle of dogma : my battle was with 
liberalism ; by liberalism I meant the anti-dogmatic principle 
and its developments. This was the first point on which I 
was certain. Here I make a remark : persistence in a given 
belief is no sufficient test of its truth ; but departure from it 
is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so certain about 
it. In proportion then as I had in 1832 a strong persuasion 
in beliefs which I have since given up, so far a sort of guilt 
attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for my 
multiform conduct in consequence of it. But here I have the 



96 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPESTIONS. 

satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and noth- 
ing to repent of. The main principle of the Movement is as 
dear to me now as it ever was. I have changed in many 
things : in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma 
has been the fundamental principle of my religion : I know 
no other religion ; I cannot enter into the idea of any other 
sort of religion ; roligion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a 
dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love with- 
out the fact of a fiather, as devotion without the fact of a Su- 
preme Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I 
hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the end. Even 
when I was under Dr. Whately's influence, I had no tempta- 
tion to be less zealous for the great dogmas of the faith, and 
at various times I used to resist such trains of thought on his 
part, as seemed to me (rightly or wrongly) to obscure them. 
Such was the fundamental principle of the Movement of 1833. 
2. Secondly, I was confident in the truth of a certain definite 
religious teaching, based upon this foundation of dogma ; viz., 
that there was a visible Church with sacraments and rites 
which are the channels of invisible grace. I thought that this 
was the doctrine of Scripture, of the early Church, and of the 
Anglican Church. Here again, I have not changed in opin- 
ion ; I am as certain now on this point as I was in 1833, and 
have never ceased to be certain. In 1834 and the following 
years I put this ecclesiastical doctrine on a broader basis, after 
reading Laud, Bramhall, and Stillingfleet and other Anghcan 
divines on the one hand, and after prosecuting the study of the 
Fathers on the other ; but the doctrine of 1833 was strength- 
ened in me, not changed. "When I began the Tracts for the 
Times I rested the main doctrine, of which I am speaking, 
upon Scripture, on St. Ignatius's Epistles, and on the Angli- 
can Prayer Book. As to the existence of a visible Church, I 
especially argued out the point from Scripture, in Tract 11, 
viz., from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. As to 
the Sacraments and Sacramental rites, I stood on the Prayer 
Book. I appealed to the Ordination Service, in which the 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 97 

Bishop says, '' Receive the Holy Ghost ; " to the Visitation 
service, which teaches confession and absolution ; to the Bap- 
tismal Service, in which the priest speaks of the child after 
baptism as regenerate ; to the Catechism, in which Sacrament- 
al Communion is receiving " verily the Body and Blood of 
Christ ; " to the Commination Service, in which we are told to 
do works of penance ; '* to the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, 
to the calendar and rubricks, wherein we find the festivals of 
the Apostles, notice of certain other Saints, and days of fast- 
ing and abstinence. 

And further, as to the Episcopal system, I founded it upon 
the Epistles of St. Ignatius, which inculcated it in various 
ways. One passage especially impressed itself upon me : 
speaking of cases of disobedience to ecclesiastical authority, he 
says, " A man does not deceive that Bishop whom he sees, but 
he practises rather upon the Bishop Invisible, and so the ques- 
tion is not with flesh, but with God, who knows the secret 
heart." I wished to act on this principle to the letter, and I 
may say with confidence that I never consciously transgressed 
it. I loved to act in the sight of my Bishop, as if I was, as it 
were, in the sight of God. It was one of my special safe- 
guards against myself and of my supports ; I could not go very 
wrong while I had reason to believe that I was in no respect 
displeasing him. It was not a mere formal obedience to rule 
that I put before me, but I desired to please him personally, 
as I considered him set over me by the Divine Hand. I was 
strict in observing my clerical engagements, not only because 
they were engagements, but because I considered myself sim- 
ply as the servant and instrument of my bishop. I did not 
care much for the Bench of Bishops, except as they might be 
the voice of my Church : nor should I have cared much for a 
Provincial Council ; nor for a Diocesan Synod, presided over 
by my Bishop ; all these matters seemed to me to be jure ec- 
clesiastico, but what to me was jure divino was the voice of my 
Bishop in his own person. My own Bishop was my Pope ; I 
knew no other ; the successor of the Apostles, the Vicar of 
5 



98 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Christ. This was but a practical exhibition of the Anglican 
theory of Church Government, as I had already drawn it out 
myself. This continued all through my course ; when at 
length in 1845 I wrote to Bishop Wiseman, in whose Vicari- 
ate I found myself, to announce my conversion, I could find 
nothing better to say to him, than that I would obey the Pope 
as I had obeyed my own Bishop in the Anglican Church. My 
duty to him was my point of honour ; his disapprobation was 
the one thing which I could not bear. I beheve it to have 
been a generous and honest feeling ; and in consequence I was 
rewarded by having all my time for ecclesiastical superior a 
man, whom had I had a choice, I should have preferred, out and 
out, to any other Bishop on the Bench, and for whose memory 
I have a special affection. Dr. Bagot^a man of noble mind, 
and as kind-hearted and as considerate as he was noble. He 
ever sympathized with me in my trials which followed ; it was 
my own fault that I was not brought into more familiar per- 
sonal relations with him than it was my happiness to be. May 
his name be ever blessed ! 

And now in concluding my remarks on the second point on 
which my confidence rested, I observe that here again I have 
no retractation to announce as to its main outline. While I am 
now as clear in my acceptance of the principle of dogma, as I 
was in 1833 and 1816, so again I am now as firm in my be- 
lief of a visible Church, of the authority of Bishops, of the 
grace of the sacraments, of the religious worth of works of 
penance, as I was in 1833. I have added Articles to my 
Creed ; but the old ones, which I then held with a divine faith, 
remain. 

3. But now, as to the third point on which I stood in 1833, 
and which I have utterly renounced and trampled upon since, 
my then view of the Church of Rome ; — I will speak about it 
as exactly as I can. When I was young, as I have said al- 
ready, and after I was grown up, I thought the Pope to be 
Antichrist. At Christmas, 1824-'5, I preached a Sermon to 
that effect. In 1827 I accepted eagerly the stanza in the 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 99 

Christian Year, which many people thought too charitable, 
" Speak gently of thy sister's fall." From the time that I 
knew Froude I got less and less bitter on the subject. I spoke 
(successively, but I cannot tell in what order or at what dates) 
of the Roman Church as being bound up with " the cause of 
Antichrist," as being one of the '■'•many antichrists" foretold 
by St. John, as being influenced by " the spirit of Antichrist," 
find as having something "very Antichristian " or "unchris- 
tian " about her. From my boyhood and in 1824 I considered, 
after Protestant authorities, that St. Gregory I. about a.d. 600 
was the first Pope that was Antichrist, and again that he was 
also a great and holy man ; in 1832-3 I thought the Church 
of Pome was bound up with the cause of Antichrist by the 
Council of Trent. When it was that in my deliberate judg- 
ment I gave up the notion altogether in any shape, that some 
special reproach was attached to her name, I cannot tell ; but 
I had a shrinking from renouncing it, even when my reason so 
ordered me, from a sort of conscience or prejudice, I think iip 
to 1843. Moreover, at least during the Tract Movement, I 
thought the essence of her oiFence to consist in the honours 
which she paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints ; and the 
more I grew in devotion, both to the Saints and to Our Lady, 
the more impatient was I at the Roman practices, as if those 
glorified creations of God must be gravely shocked, if pain 
could be theirs, at the undue veneration of which they were 
the objects. 

On the other hand, Hurrell Froude in his familiar conver- 
sations was always tending to rub the idea out of my mind. 
In a passage of one of his letters from abroad, alluding, I sup- 
pose, to what I used to say in opposition to him, he observes : 
" I think people are injudicious who talk against the Roman 
Catholics for worshipping Saints, and honouring the Virgin 
and images, &c. These things may perhaps be idolatrous : I 
cannot make up my mind about it ; but to my mind it is the 
Carnival that is real practical idolatry, as it is written, ' the 
people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.' " The 



100 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 

Carnival, I observe in passing, is, in fact, one of those very- 
excesses, to which, for at least three centuries, religious Cath- 
olics have ever opposed themselves, as we see in the life of St. 
Philip, to say nothing of the present day ; but this he did not 
know. Moreover, from Froude I learned to admire the great 
medieval Pontiffs ; and, of course, when I had come to con- 
sider the Council of Trent to be the turning-point of the history 
of Christian Pome, I found myself as free, as I was rejoicedf 
to speak in their praise. Then, when I was abroad, the sight 
of so many great places, venerable shrines, and noble churches, 
much impressed my imagination. And my heart was touched 
also. Making an expedition on foot across some wild country 
in Sicily, at six in the morning I came upon a small church ; 
I heard voices, and I looked in. It was crowded, and the 
congregation was singing. Of course it was the Mass, though 
I did not know it at the time. And, in my weary days at Pa- 
lermo, I was not ungrateful for the comfort which I had re- 
ceived in frequenting the Churches, nor did I ever forget it. 
Then, again, her zealous maintenance of the doctrine and the 
rule of celibacy, which I recognized as Apostolic, and her 
faithful agreement with Antiquity in so many points besides, 
which were dear to me, was an argument as well as a plea in 
favour of the great Church of Rome. Thus I learned to have 
tender feelings towards her ; but still my reason was not af- 
fected at all. My judgment was against her, when viewed as 
an institution, as truly as it ever had been. 

This conflict between reason and affection I expressed in 
one of the early Tracts, published July, 1834. " Considering 
the high gifts and the strong claims of the Church of Pome 
and its dependencies on our admiration, reverence, love, and 
gratitude ; how could we withstand it, as we do, how could we 
refrain from being melted into tenderness, and rushing into 
communion with it, but for the words of Truth itself, which 
bid us prefer It to the whole world ? ' He that loveth father 
or mother more than Me, is not worthy of me.' How could 
' we learn to be severe, and execute judgment,' but for the 



HISTORY OF MT EELIGIOUS OPLNIONS. 101 

warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher, who 
should preach new gods ; and the anathema of St. Paul even 
against Angels and Apostles, who should bring in a new doc- 
trine?" — Records, No. 24. My feeling was something like 
that of a man, who is obliged in a court of justice to bear 
witness against a friend ; or like my own now, when I have 
said, and shall say, so many things on which I had rather be 
silent. 

As a matter, then, of simple conscience, though it went 
against my feelings, I felt it to be a duty to protest against the 
Church of Rome. But besides this, it was a duty, because the 
prescription of such a protest was a living principle of my 
own Church, as expressed in not simply a catena, but a con- 
sensus of her divines, and the voice of her people. Moreover, 
such a protest was necessary as an integral portion of her con- 
troversial basis ; for I adopted the argument of Bernard Gil- 
pin, that Protestants " were not able to give smj/irm and solid 
reason of the separation besides this, to wit, that the Pope is 
Antichrist." But while I thus thought such a protest to be 
based upon truth, and to be a religious duty, and a rule of 
Anglicanism, and a necessity of the case, I did not at all like 
the work. Hurrell Froude attacked me for doing it ; and, be- 
sides, I felt that my language had a vulgar and rhetorical look 
about it. I believed, and really measured my words when I 
used them ; but I knew that I had a temptation, on the other 
hand, to say against Rome as much as ever I could, in order 
to protect myself against the charge of Popery. 

And now I come to the very point, for which I have in- 
troduced the subject of my feelings about Rome. I felt such 
confidence in the substantial justice of the charges which I ad- 
vanced against her, that I considered them to be a safeguard 
and an assurance that no harm could ever arise from the freest 
exposition of what I used to call Anglican principles. All the 
world was astounded at what Froude and I were saying ; men 
said that it was sheer Popery. I answered, " True, we seem 
to be making straight for it ; but go on awhile, and you will 



102 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTTS OPIKIONS. 

come to a deep chasm across the path, which makes real 
approximation impossible." And I urged in addition, that 
many Anglican divines had been accused of Popery, yet had 
died in their Anglicanism ; — ^now, the ecclesiastical prin- 
ciples which I professed, they had professed also ; and the 
judgment against Rome which they had formed, I had formed 
also. Whatever faults then the Anglican system might have, 
and however boldly I might point them out, any how that sys- 
tem was not vulnerable on the side of Rome, and might be 
mended in spite of her. In that very agreement of the two 
forms of faith, close as it might seem, would really be found, 
on examination, the elements and principles of an essential 
discordance. 

It was with this supreme persuasion on my mind that I 
fancied that there could be no rashness in giving to the world in 
fullest measure the teaching and the writings of the Fathers. I 
thought that the Church of England was substantially founded 
upon them. I did not know all that the Fathers had said, but 
I felt that, even when their tenets happened to differ from the 
Anglican, no harm could come of reporting them. I said out 
what I was clear they had said ; I spoke vaguely and imperfectly 
of what I thought they said, or what some of them had said. 
Any how, no harm could come of bending the crooked stick 
the other way, in the process of straightening it ; it was im- 
possible to break it. If there was any thing in the Fathers of 
a startling character, it would be only for a time ; it would 
admit of explanation ; it could not lead to Rome. I express 
this view of the matter in a passage of the Preface to the 
first volume, which I edited, of the Library of the Fathers. 
Speaking of the strangeness at first sight, presented to the 
Anglican mind, of some of their principles and opinions, I 
bid the reader go forward hopefully, and not indulge his criti- 
cism till he knows more about them than he will learn at the 
outset. " Since the evil," I say, "is in the nature of the case 
itself, we can do no more than have patience, and recom- 
mend patience to others, and, with the racer in the tragedy, 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 103 

look forward steadily and hopefully to the event^ rw reXei 
TTiG-LV (pipG)v, when, as we trust, all that is inharmonious 
and anomalous in the details, will at length be practically 
smoothed." 

Such was the position, such the defences, such the tactics, 
by which I thought it was both incumbent on us, and possible to 
us, to meet that onset of Liberal principles, of which we were aU 
in immediate anticipation, whether in the Church or in the Uni- 
versity. And during the first year of the Tracts, the attack upon 
the University began. In November, 1834, was sent to me by 
the author the second edition of a Pamphlet entitled, " Obser- 
vations on Religious Dissent, with particular reference to the 
use of religious tests in the University." In this Pamphlet it 
was maintained that " Religion is distinct from Theological 
Opinion," pp. 1, 28, 30, &c. ; that it is but a common prej- 
udice to identify theological propositions methodically de- 
duced and stated, with the simple religion of Christ, p. 1 ; 
that under Theological Opinion were to be placed the Trini- 
tarian doctrine, p. 27, and the Unitarian, p. 19 ; that a dogma 
was a theological opinion insisted on, pp. 20, 21 ; that specu- 
lation always left an opening for improvement, p. 22 ; that 
the Church of England was not dogmatic in its spirit, though 
the wording of its formularies may often carry the sound of 
dogmatism, p. 23. 

I acknowledged the receipt of this work in the following 
letter : 

" The kindness which has led to your presenting me with 
your late pamphlet, encourages me to hope that you will for- 
give me, if I take the opportunity it affords of expressing to 
you my very sincere and deep regret that it has been pub- 
lished. Such an opportunity I could not let slip without being 
unfaithful to my own serious thoughts on the subject. 

" While I respect the tone of piety which the Pamphlet 
displays, I dare not trust myself to put on paper my feelings 
about the principles contained in it ; tending, as they do, in 
my opinion, altogether to make shipwreck of Christian faith. 



104 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIGNS. 

I also lament, that, by its appearance, the first step has been 
taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good under- 
standing which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, 
if once seriously disturbed, will be succeeded by dissensions 
the more intractable, because justified in the minds of those 
who resist innovation by a feeling of imperative duty." 

Since that time Phaeton has got into the chariot of the sun ; 
we, alas ! can only look on, and watch him down the steep of 
heaven. Meanwhile, the lands, which he is passing over, suf- 
fer from his driving. 

Such was the commencement of the assault of Liberalism 
upon the old orthodoxy of Oxford and England ; and it could 
not have been broken, as it was, for so long a time, had not 
a great change taken place in the circumstances of that coun- 
ter-movement which had already started with the view of re- 
sisting it. For myself, I was not the person to take the lead 
of a party ; I never was, from first to last, more than a lead- 
ing author of a school ; nor did I wish ever to be any thing 
else. This is my own account of the matter, and I say it, 
neither as intending to disown the responsibility of what was 
done, nor as if ungrateful to those who at that time made 
more of me' than I deserved, and did more for my sake and at 
my bidding than I realized myself. I am giving my history 
from my own point of sight, and it is as follows : — I had lived 
for ten years among my personal friends ; the greater part of 
the time, I had been influenced, not influencing ; and at no 
time have I acted on others, without their acting upon me. 
As is the custom of a University, I had lived with my private, 
nay, with some of my public, pupils, and with the junior fel- 
lows of my College, without form or distance, on a footing of 
equality. Thus it was through friends, younger, for the 
most part, than myself, that my principles were spreading. 
They heard what I said in conversation, and told it to others. 
Undergraduates in due time took their degree, and became 
private tutors themselves. In this new status, in turn, they 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPmiONS. 105 

preached the opinions which they had abeady learned them- 
selves. Others went down to the country, and became 
curates of parishes. Then they had down from London 
parcels of the Tracts, and other publications. They placed 
them in the shops of local booksellers, got them into news- 
papers, introduced them to clerical meetings, and converted 
more or less their Rectors and their brother curates. Thus 
the Movement, viewed with relation to myself, was but a float- 
ing opinion ; it was not a power. It never would have been 
a power, if it had remained in my hands. Years after, a 
friend, writing to me in remonstrance at the excesses, as he 
thought them, of my disciples, applied to me my own verse 
about St. Gregory Nazianzen, " Thou couldst a people raise, 
but couldst not rule." At the time that he wrote to me, I had 
special impediments in the way of such an exercise of power ; 
but at no time could I exercise over others that authority, 
which under the circumstances was imperatively required. 
My great principle ever was. Live and let live. I never had 
the staidness or dignity necessary for a leader. To the last I 
never recognized the hold I had over young men. Of late 
years I have read and heard that they even imitated me in va- 
rious ways. I was quite unconscious of it, and I think my 
immediate friends knew too well how disgusted I should be at 
the news, to have the heart to tell me. I felt great impatience 
at our being called a party, and would not allow that we were. 
I had a lounging, free-and-easy way of carrying things on. I 
exercised no sufficient censorship upon the Tracts. I did not 
confine them to the writings of such persons as agreed in all 
things with myself; and, as to my own Tracts, I printed on 
them a notice to the effect, that any one who pleased, might 
make what use he would of them, and reprint them with alter- 
ations if he chose, under the conviction that their main scope 
could not be damaged by such a process. It was the same 
afterwards, as regards other publications. For two years I 
furnished a certain number of sheets for the British Critic 
from myself and my friends, while a gentleman was editor, a 
5* 



106 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTIS OPINIONS. 

man of splendid talent, who, however, was scarcely an ac- 
quaintance of mine, and had no sympathy with the Tracts. 
When I was Editor myself, from 1838 to 1841, in my very 
first number, I suffered to appear a critique unfavourable to 
my work on Justification, which had been published a few 
months before, from a feeling of propriety, because I had put 
the book into the hands of the writer who so handled it. 
Afterwards I suffered an article against the Jesuits to appear 
in it, of which I did not like the tone. When I had to pro- 
vide a curate for my new Church at Littlemore, I engaged a 
friend, by no fault of his, who, before he entered into his 
charge, preached a sermon, either in depreciation of baptismal 
regeneration, or of Dr. Pusey's view of it. I showed a simi- 
lar easiness as to the Editors who helped me in the separate 
volumes of Fleury's Church History ; they were able, learned, 
and excellent men, but their after history has shown, how lit- 
tle my choice of them was influenced by any notion I could 
have had of any intimate agreement of opinion between them 
and myself. I shall have to make the same remark in its 
place concerning the Lives of the English Saints, which subse- 
quently appeared. All this may seem inconsistent with what 
I have said of my fierceness. I am not bound to account for 
it ; but there have been men before me, fierce in act, yet tol- 
erant and moderate in their reasonings ; at least, so I read 
history. However, such was the case, and such its effect upon 
the Tracts. These at first starting were short, hasty, and 
some of them ineffective ; and at the end of the year, when 
collected into a volume, they had a slovenly appearance. 

It was under these circumstances, that Dr. Pusey joined 
us. I had known him well since 1827-8, and had felt for him 
an enthusiastic admiration. I used to call him 6 jieXag. His 
great learning, his immense diligence, his scholarlike mind, 
his simple devotion to the cause of religion, overcame me ; 
and great of course was my joy, when in the last days of 1833 
he showed a disposition to make common cause with us. His 
Tract on Fasting appeared as one of the series with the date 



HISTORY OF MY EELiaiOIJS OPINIONS. 107 

of December 21. He was not, however, I think fully associ- 
ated in the Movement till 1835 and 1836, when he published 
his Tract on Baptism, and started the Library of the Fathers. 
He at once gave to us a position and a name. Without him 
we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 
1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggres- 
sion. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ 
Church ; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep 
religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Pro- 
fessorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations with 
University authorities. He was to the Movement all that Mr. 
Kose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which 
was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the 
familiar daily society of the persons who had commenced it. 
And he had that special claim on their attachment, which lies 
in the living presence of a faithful and loyal affection ateness. 
There was henceforth a man who could be the head and cen- 
tre of the zealous people in every part of the country, who 
were adopting the new opinions ; and not only so, but there 
was one who furnished the Movement with a front to the 
world, and gained for it a recognition from other parties in the 
University. In 1829 Mr. Froude, or Mr. R. Wilberforce, or 
]VIr. Newman were but individuals, and, when they ranged 
themselves in the contest of that year on the side of Sir Robert 
Inglis, men on either side only asked with surprise how they 
got there, and attached no significancy to the fact ; but Dr. 
Pusey was, to use the common expression, a host in himself; 
he was able to give a name, a form, and a personality to what 
was without him a sort of mob ; and when various parties had 
to meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of the Gov- 
ernment, we of the Movement took our place by right among 
them. 

Such was the benefit which he conferred on the Movement 
externally ; nor was the internal advantage at all inferior to 
it. He was a man of large designs ; he had a hopeful, san- 
guine mind ; he had no fear of others ; he was haunted by no 



108 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

intellectual perplexities. People are apt to say that he was 
once nearer to the Catholic Church than he is now ; I pray 
God that he may be one day far nearer to the Catholic Church 
than he was then ; for I believe that, in his reason and judg- 
ment, all the time that I knew him, he never was near to it 
at all. When I became a Catholic, I was often asked, 
" What of Dr. Pusey ? " when I said that I did not see symp- 
toms of his doing as I had done, I was sometimes thought un- 
charitable. If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first 
essential in the leader of a party. Dr. Pusey had it. The 
most remarkable instance of this, was his statement, in one of 
his subsequent defences of the Movement, when too it had 
advanced a considerable way in the direction of Rome, that 
among its hopeful peculiarities was its " stationariness." 
He made it in good faith ; it was his subjective view of it. 

Dr. Pusey*s influence was felt at once. He saw that 
there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful 
pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the 
whole Movement. It was through him that the character of 
the Tracts was changed. When he gave to us his Tract on 
Fasting, he put his initials to it. In 1835 he published his 
elaborate Treatise on Baptism, which was followed by other 
Tracts from different authors, if not of equal learning, yet of 
equal power and appositeness. The Catenas of Anglican 
divines which occur in the Series, though projected, I think, 
by me, were executed with a like aim at greater accuracy and 
method. In 1836 he advertised his great project for a Trans- 
lation of the Fathers : — ^but I must return to myself. I am 
not T^riting the history either of Dr. Pusey or of the Move- 
ment ; but it is a pleasure to me to have been able to introduce 
here reminiscences of the place which he held in it, which have 
so direct a bearing on myself, that they are no digression 
from my narrrtive. 

I suspect it was Dr. Pusey's influence and example which 
set me, and made me set others, on the larger and more care- 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 109 

ful works in defence of the principles of the Movement which 
followed in a course of years, — some of them demanding and re- 
ceiving from their authors, such elaborate treatment that they 
did not make their appearance till both its temper and its for- 
tunes had changed. I set about a work at once ; one in which 
was brought out with precision the relation in which we stood 
to the Church of Rome. We could not move a step in com- 
fort, till this was done. It was of absolute necessity and a 
plain duty, to provide as soon as possible a large statement, 
which would encourage and reassure our friends, and repel 
the attacks of our opponents. A cry was heard on all sides 
of us, that the Tracts and the writings of the Fathers would 
lead us to become Catholics, before we were aware of it. This 
was loudly expressed by members of the Evangelical party, 
who in 1836 had joined us in making a protest in Convoca- 
tion against a memorable appointment of the Prime Minister. 
These clergymen even then avowed their desire, that the next 
time they were brought up to Oxford to give a vote, it might 
be in order to put down the Popery of the Movement. There 
was another reason still, and quite as important. Monsignore 
Wiseman, with the acuteness and zeal which might be expected 
from that great Prelate, had anticipated what was coming, 
had returned to England in 1836, had delivered Lectures in 
London on the doctrines of Catholicism, and created an im- 
pression through the country, shared in by ourselves, that we 
had for our opponents in controversy, not only our brethren, 
but our hereditary foes. These were the circumstances which 
led to my publication of " The Prophetical office of the Church 
viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestant- 
ism." 

This work employed me for three years, from the begin- 
ning of 1834 to the end of 1836. It was composed, after a 
careful consideration and comparison of the principal Angli- 
can divines of the 17th century. It was first written in the 
shape of controversial correspondence with a learned French 
Priest ; then it was recast, and delivered in Lectures at St. 



110 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Marj's : lastly, with considerable retrenchments and additions, 
it was rewritten for publication. 

It attempts to trace out the rudimental lines on which 
Christian faith and teaching proceed, and to use them as 
means of determining the relation of the Roman and Anglican 
systems to each other. In this way it shows that to confuse 
the two together is impossible, and that the Anglican can be 
as little said to tend to the Roman, as the Roman to the Angli- 
can. The spirit of the Volume is not so gentle to the Church 
of Rome, as Tract 71 published the year before ; on the con- 
trary, it is very fierce ; and this I attribute to the circum- 
stance that the Volume is theological and didactic, whereas 
the Tract, being controversial, assumes as little and grants as 
much as possible on the points in dispute, and insists on points 
of agreement as well as of difference. A further and more 
direct reason is, that in my Volume I deal with " Romanism" 
(as I call it), not so much in its formal decrees and in the 
substance of its creed, as in its traditional action and its 
authorized teaching as represented by its prominent writers ; 
— whereas the Tract is written as if discussing the differ- 
ences of the Churches with a view to a reconciliation between 
them. There is a further reason too, which I will state 
presently. 

But this Volume had a larger scope than that of opposing 
the Roman system. It was an attempt at commencing a sys- 
tem of theology on the Anglican idea, and based upon Anglican 
authorities. Mr. Palmer, about the same time, was projecting 
a work of a similar nature in his own way. It was published, 
I think, under the title, "A Treatise on the Christian Church." 
As was to be expected from the author, it was a most learned, 
most careful composition ; and in its form, I should say, polem- 
ical. So happily at least did he follow the logical method of 
the Roman Schools, that Father Perrone in his Treatise on 
dogmatic theology, recognized in him a combatant of the true 
cast, and saluted him as a foe worthy of being vanquished. 
Other soldiers in that field he seems to have thought little bet- 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. Ill 

ter than the lanzknechts of the middle ages, and, I dare say, 
with very good reason. When I knew that excellent and 
kind-hearted man at Rome at a later time, he allowed me to 
put him to ample penance for those light thoughts of me, which 
he had once had, by encroaching on his valuable time with my 
theological questions. As to Mr. Palmer's book, it was one 
which no Anglican could write but himself, — in no sense, if I 
recollect aright, a tentative work. The ground of controversy 
was cut into squares, and then every objection had its answer. 
This is the proper method to adopt in teaching authoritatively 
young men ; and the work in fact was intended for students in 
theology. My own book, on the other hand, was of a directly 
tentative and empirical character. I wished to build up an 
Anglican theology out of the stores which had already lay cut 
and hewn upon the ground, the past toil of great divines. To 
do this could not be the work of one man ; much less, could it 
be at once received into Anglican theology, however well it 
was done. I fully trusted that my statements of doctrine 
would turn out true and important ; yet I wrote, to use the 
common phrase, "under correction." 

There was another motive for my publishing, of a personal 
nature, which I think I should mention. I felt then, and all 
along felt, that there was an intellectual cowardice in not hav- 
ing a basis in reason for my belief, and a moral cowardice in 
not avowing that basis. I should. have felt myself less than a 
man, if I did not bring it out, whatever it was. This is one 
principal reason why I wrote and published the " Prophetical 
Office." It was on the same feeling, that in the spring of 1836, 
at a meeting of residents on the subject of the struggle then 
proceeding, some one wanted us all merely to act on college 
and conservative grounds (as I understood him), with as few 
published statements as possible : I answered, that the person 
whom we were resisting had committed himself in writing, 
and that we ought to commit ourselves too. This again was a 
main reason for the publication of Tract 90. Alas !' it Was my 
portion for whole years to remain without any satisfactory 



112 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

basis for my religious profession, in a state of moral sickness, 
neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to 
Rome. But I bore it, till in course of time my way was made 
clear to me. If here it be objected to me, that as time went 
on, I often in my writings hinted at things which I did not 
fully bring out, I submit for consideration whether this occurred 
except when I was in great difficulties, how to speak, or how 
to be silent, with due regard for the position of mind or the 
feelings of others. However, I may have an opportunity to 
say more on this subject. But to return to the " Prophetical 
Office." 

I thus speak in the Introduction to my Volume : — 
" It is proposed," I say, " to offer helps towards the forma- 
tion of a recognized Anglican theology in one of its depart- 
ments. The present state of our divinity is as follows : the 
most vigorous, the clearest, the most fertile minds, have 
through God's mercy been employed in the service of our 
Church : minds too as reverential and holy, and as fully imbued 
with Ancient Truth, and as well versed in the writings of the 
Fathers, as they were intellectually gifted. This is God's 
great mercy, indeed, for which vve must ever be thankful. 
Primitive doctrine has been explored for us in every direction, 
and the original principles of the Gospel and the Church pa- 
tiently brought to light. But one thing is still wanting : our 
champions and teachers have lived in stormy times : political 
and other influences have acted upon them variously in their 
day, and have since obstructed a careful consolidation of their 
judgments. We have a vast inheritance, but no inventory of 
our treasures. All is given us in profusion ; it remains for 
us to catalogue, sort, distribute, select, harmonize, and com- 
plete. We have more than we know how to use ; stores of 
learning, but little that is precise and serviceable ; Catholic 
truth and individual opinion, first principles and the guesses of 
genius, all mingled in the same works, and requiring to be dis- 
criminated. We meet with truths overstated or misdirected, 
matters of detail variously taken, facts incompletely proved or 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 113 

applied, and rules inconsistently urged or discordantly inter- 
preted. Such indeed is the state of every deep philosophy in 
its first stages, and therefore of theological knowledge. What 
we need at present for our Church's well-being, is not inven- 
tion, nor originality, nor sagacity, nor even learning in our 
divines, at least in the first place, though all gifts of God are 
in a measure needed, and never can be unseasonable when used 
religiously, but we need peculiarly a sound judgment, patient 
thought, discrimination, a comprehensive mind, an abstinence 
from all private fancies and caprices and personal tastes, — in 
a word. Divine Wisdom." 

The subject of the Volume is the doctrine of the Via Media, 
a name which had already been applied to the Anglican system 
by writers of name. It is an expressive title, but not alto- 
gether satisfactory, because it is at first sight negative. This 
had been the reason of my dislike to the word " Protestant ;" 
in the idea which it conveyed, it was not the profession of any 
religion at all, and was compatible with infidelity. A Via 
Media was but a receding from extremes, therefore I had to 
draw it out into a shape, and a character ; before it had claims 
on our respect, it must first be shown to be one, intelligible, 
and consistent. This was the first condition of any reasonable 
treatise on the Via Media. The second condition, and neces- 
sary too, was not in my power. I could only hope that it 
would one day be fulfilled. Even if the Via Media were ever 
so positive a religious system, it was not as yet objective and 
real ; it had no original anywhere of which it was the repre- 
sentative. It was at present a paper religion. This I confess 
in my Introduction ; I say, " Protestantism and Popery are 
real religions . . . but the Via Media, viewed as an integral 
system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." I grant 
the objection and proceed to lessen it. There I say, " It still 
remains to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, 
the religion of Andre wes. Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, 
is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a 
large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere modification or 



114 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPmiOlTS. 

transtion-state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism." 
I trusted that some day it would prove to be a substantive 
religion. 

Lest I should be misunderstood, let me observe that this 
hesitation about the validity of the theory of the Via Media 
implied no doubt of the three fundamental points on which it 
was based, as I have described above, dogma, the sacramental 
system, and opposition to the Church of Rome. 

Other investigations which followed, gave a still more ten- 
tative character to what I wrote or got written. The basis of 
the Via Media, consisting of the three elementary points which 
I have just mentioned, was clear enough ; but, not only had 
the house to be built upon them, but it had also to be furnished, 
and it is not wonderful if both I and others erred in detail in 
determining what that furniture should be, what was consistent 
with the style of building, and what was in itself desirable. I 
will explain what I mean. 

I had brought out in the " Prophetical Office" in what the 
Roman and the Anglican systems differed from each other, but 
less distinctly in what they agreed. I had indeed enumerated 
the Fundamentals, common to both, in the following passage : 
— " In both systems the same Creeds are acknowledged. Be- 
sides other points in common we both hold, that certain doc- 
trines are necessary to be believed for salvation ; we both 
believe in the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atone- 
ment ; in original sin ; in the necessity of regeneration ; in the 
supernatural grace of the Sacraments ; in the Apostolical suc- 
cession ; in the obligation of faith and obedience, and in the 
eternity of future punishment." — ^Pp. 55, 56. So much I had 
said, but I had not said enough. This enumeration implied a 
great many more points of agreement than Were found in those 
very Articles which were fundamental. If the two Churches 
were thus the same in fundamentals, they were also one and 
the same in such plain consequences as are contained in those 
fundamentals or as outwardly represented them. It was an 
Anglican principle that " the abuse of a thing doth not take 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 115 

away the lawful use of it ;" and an Anglican Canon in 1603 
had declared that the English Church had no purpose to for- 
sake all that was held in the Churches of Italy, France, and 
Spain, and reverenced those ceremonies and particular points 
which were Apostolic. Excepting then such exceptional mat- 
ters as are implied in this avowal, whether they were many 
or few, all these Churches were evidently to be considered as 
one with the Anglican. The Catholic Church in all lands had 
been one from the first for many centuries ; then, various por- 
tions had followed their own way to the injury, but not to the 
destruction, whether of truth or of charity. These portions or 
branches were mainly three : — the Greek, Latin, and Anglican. 
Each of these inherited the early undivided Church in solido as 
its own possession. Each branch was identical with that early 
undivided Church, and in the unity of that Church it had unity 
with the other branches. The three branches agreed together 
in all hut their later accidental errors. Some branches had 
retained in detail portions of Apostolical truth and usage, which 
the others had not ; and these portions might be and should be 
appropriated again by the others which had let them slip. 
Thus, the middle age belonged to the Anglican Church, and 
much more did the middle age of England. The Church of 
the 12th century was the Church of the 19th. Dr. Howley 
sat in the seat of St. Thomas the Martyr ; Oxford was a 
medieval University. Saving our engagements to Prayer 
Book and Articles, we might breathe and live and act and 
speak, in the atmosphere and climate of Henry III.'s day, or 
the Confessor's, or of Alfred's. And we ought to be indulgent 
of all that Rome taught now, as of what Rome taught then, 
saving our protest. We might boldly welcome, even what we 
did not ourselves think right to adopt. And, when we were 
obliged on the contrary boldly to denounce, we should do so 
with pain, not with exultation. By very reason of our protest, 
which we had made, and made ex animo, we could agree to 
differ. What the members of the Bible Society did on the 
basis of Scripture, we could do on the basis of the Church ; 



116 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Trinitarian and Unitarian were further apart than Roman and 
Anglican. Thus we had a real wish to cooperate with Rome 
in all lawful things, if she would let us, and the rules of our 
own Church let us ; and we thought there was no better way 
towards the restoration of doctrinal purity and unity. And 
we thought that Rome was not committed by her formal de- 
crees to all that she actually taught ; and again, if her disput- 
ants had been unfair to us, or her rulers tyrannical, that on 
our side too there had been rancour and slander in our contro- 
versy with her, and violence in our political measures. As to 
ourselves being instruments in improving the belief or practice 
of Rome directly, I used to say, " Look at home ; let us first, 
or at least let us the while, supply our own shortcomings, be- 
fore we attempt to be physicians to any one else." This is 
very much the spirit of Tract 71, to which I referred just 
now. I am well aware that there is a paragraph contrary to 
it in the Prospectus to the Library of the Fathers ; but I never 
concurred in it. Indeed, I have no intention whatever of im- 
plying that Dr. Pusey concurred in the ecclesiastical theory, 
which I have been drawing out ; nor that I took it up myself 
except by degrees in the course of ten years. It was neces- 
sarily the growth of time. In fact, hardly any two persons, 
who took part in the Movement, agreed in their view of the 
limit to which our general principles might religiously be 
carried. 

And now I have said enough on what I consider to have 
been the general objects of the various works which I wrote, 
edited, or prompted in the years which I am reviewing ; I 
wanted to bring out in a substantive form, a living Church of 
England in a position proper to herself, and founded on dis- 
tinct principles ; as far as paper could do it, and as earnestly 
preaching it and influencing others towards it, could tend to 
make it a fact ; — a living Church, made of flesh and blood, 
with voice, complexion, and motion and action, and a will of 
its own. I believe I had no private motive, and no personal 
aim. Nor did I ask for more than " a fair staoje and no 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 117 

favour," nor expect the work would be done in my days ; but 
I thought that enough would be secured to continue it in the 
future, under, perhaps, more hopeful circumstances and pros- 
pects than the present. 

I will mention in illustration some of the principal works, 
doctrinal and historical, which originated in the object which 
I have stated. 

I wrote my Essay on Justification in 1837 ; it was aimed 
at the Lutheran dictum that justification by faith only was the 
cardinal doctrine of Christianity. I considered that this doc- 
trine was either a paradox or a truism — a paradox in Luther's 
mouth, a truism in Melanchthon. I thought that the Anglican 
Church followed Melanchthon, and that in consequence be- 
tween Rome and Anglicanism, between high Church and low 
Church, there was no real intellectual difference on the point. 
I wished to fill up a ditch, the work of man. In this Volume 
again, I express my desire to build up a system of theology 
out of the Anglican divines, and "imply that my dissertation 
was a tentative Inquiry. I speak in the Preface of "offering 
suggestions towards a work, which must be uppermost in the 
mind of every true son of the English Church at this day — the 
consolidation of a theological system, which, built upon those 
formularies, to which aU clergymen are bound, may tend to 
inform, persuade, and absorb into itself religious minds, which 
hitherto have fancied, that, on the peculiar Protestant ques- 
tions, they were seriously opposed to each other." — ^P. vii. 

In my University Sermons there is a series of discussions 
upon the subject of Faith and Reason ; these again were the 
tentative commencement of a grave and necessary work ; it 
was an inquiry into the ultimate basis of religious faith, prior 
to the distinction into Creeds. 

In like manner in a Pamphlet which I published in the 
summer of 1838 is an attempt at placing the doctrine of the 
Real Presence on an intellectual basis. The fundamental idea 
is consonant to that to which I had been so long attached ; it 
is the denial of the existence of space except as a subjective 
idea of our minds. 



118 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPmiONS. 

The Church of the Fathers is one of the earliest produc- 
tions of the Movement, and appeared in numbers in the Brit- 
ish Magazine, and was written with the aim of introducing the 
religious sentiments, views, and customs of the first ages into 
the modern Church of England. 

The Translation of Fleury's Church History was com- 
menced under these circumstances : — I was fond of Fleury for 
a reason which I express in the Advertisement ; because it 
presented a sort of photograph of ecclesiastical history without 
any comment upon it. In the event, that simple representa- 
tion of the early centuries had a good deal to do with unset- 
tling me ; but how little I could anticipate this, will be seen in 
the fact that the publication was a favourite scheme of Mr. 
Rose's. He proposed it to me twice, between the years 1834 
and 1837 ; and I mention it as one out of many particulars 
curiously illustrating how truly my change of opinion arose, 
not from foreign influences, but from the working of my own 
mind, and the accidents ardund me. The date at which the 
portion actually translated began was determined by the Pub- 
lisher on reasons with which we were not concerned. 

Another historical work, but drawn from original sources, 
was given to the world by my old friend Mr. Bowden, being a 
life of Pope Gregory VII. I need scarcely recall to those 
who have read it, the power and the liveliness of the narrative. 
This composition was the author's relaxation on evenings and 
in his summer vacations, from his ordinary engagements in 
London. It had been suggested to him originally by me, at 
the instance of Hurrell Froude. 

The Series of the Lives of the English Saints was project- 
ed at a later period, under circumstances which I shall have 
in the sequel to describe. Those beautiful compositions have 
nothing in them, as far as I recollect, simply inconsistent with 
the general objects which I have been assigning to my labours 
in these years, though the immediate occasion of them and 
their tone could not in the exercise of the largest indulgence be 
said to have an Anglican direction. 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 119 

At a comparatively early date I drew up the Tract on the 
Roman Breviary. It frightened my own friends on its first 
appearance, and, several years afterwards, when younger men 
began to translate for publication the four volumes in extenso, 
they were dissuaded from doing so by advice to which from a 
sense of duty they listened. It was an apparent accident 
which introduced me to the knowledge of that most won- 
derful and most attractive monument of the devotion of saints. 
On Hurrell Froude's death, in 1836, I was asked to select one 
of his books as a keepsake. I selected Butler's Analogy ; find- 
ing that it had been already chosen, I looked with some per- 
plexity along the shelves as they stood before me, when an in- 
timate friend at my elbow said, " Take that." It was the 
Breviary which Hurrell had had with him at Barbados. Ac- 
cordingly I took it, studied it, wrote my Tract from it, and 
have it on my table in constant use till this day. 

That dear and familiar companion, who thus put the Bre- 
viary into my hands, is still in the Anglican Church. So 
too is that early venerated long-loved friend, together with 
whom I edited a work which, more perhaps than any other, 
caused disturbance and annoyance in the Anglican world, 
Froude's Remains ; yet, however judgment might run as to 
the prudence of publishing it, I never heard any one impute to 
Mr. Keble the very shadow of dishonesty or treachery towards 
his Church in so acting. 

The annotated Translation of the Treatise of St. Athana- 
sius was of course in no sense a tentative work ; it belongs to 
another order of thought. This historico-dogmatic work em- 
ployed me for years. I had made preparations for following 
it up with a doctrinal history of the heresies which succeeded 
to the Arian. 

I should make mention also of the British Critic. I was 
Editor of it for three years, from July 1838 to July 1841. 
My writers belonged to various schools, some to none at all. 
The subjects are various, — classical, academical, political, 
critical, and artistic, as well as theological, and upon the Move- 



120 HISTOEY OF MT KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

ment none are to be found which do not keep quite clear of 
advocating the cause of Rome. 

So I went on for years, up to 1841. It was, in a human 
point of view, the happiest time of my life. I was truly at 
home. I had in one of my volumes appropriated to myself 
the words of Bramhall, " Bees, by the instinct of nature, do 
love their hives, and birds their nests." I did not suppose that 
such sunshine would last, though I knew not what would be its 
termination. It was the time of plenty, and, during its seven 
years, I tried to lay up as much as I could for the dearth which 
was to follow it. We prospered and spread. I have spoken 
of the doings of these years, since I was a Catholic, in a pas- 
sage, part of which I will quote, though there is a sentence in it 
that requires some limitation : 

" From beginnings so small," I said, " from elements of 
thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo- 
Catholic party suddenly became a power in the National 
Church, and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its 
originators would have found it difficult to say what they aimed 
at of a practical kind : rather, they put forth views and prin- 
ciples, for their own sake, because they were true, as if they 
were obliged to say them ; and, as they might be themselves 
surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had as 
great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their 
propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doc- 
trines were in the air ; that to assert was to prove, and that to 
explain was to persuade ; and that the Movement in which 
they were taking part was the birth of a crisis rather than of 
a place. In a very few years a school of opinion was formed, 
fixed in its principles, indefinite and progressive in their range ; 
and it extended itself into every part of the country. If we 
inquire what the world thought of it, we have still more to 
raise our wonder ; for, not to mention the excitement it caused 
in England, the Movement and its party-names were known to 
the police of Italy and to the back-woodmen of America. And 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 121 

SO it proceeded, getting stronger and stronger every year, till it 
came into collision with the Nation, and that Church of the 
Nation, which it began by professing especially to serve." 

The greater its success, the nearer was that collision at 
hand. The first threatenings of the crisis were heard in 1838. 
At that time, my Bishop in a Charge made some light animad- 
versions, but they were animadversions, on the Tracts for the 
Times. At once I offered to stop them. What took place on 
the occasion I prefer to state in the words, in which I related 
it in a Pamphlet addressed to him in a later year, when the 
blow actually came down upon me. 

" In your Lordship's Charge for 1838," I said, " an allu- 
sion was made to the Tracts for the Times. Some opponents 
of the Tracts said that you treated them with undue indulgence. 
... I wrote to the Archdeacon on the subject, submitting the 
Tracts entirely to your Lordship's disposal. What I thought 
about your Charge wiU appear from the words I then used to 
him. I said, ' A Bishop's lightest word ex cathedrd is heavy. 
His judgment on a book cannot be light. It is a rare occur- 
rence.' And I offered to withdraw any of the Tracts over 
which I had control, if I were informed which were those to 
which your Lordship had objections. I afterwards wrote to 
your Lordship to this effect, that ' I trusted I might say sin- 
cerely, that I should feel a more lively pleasure in knowing 
that I was submitting myself to your Lordship's expressed 
judgment in a matter of that kind, than I could have even in 
the widest circulation of the volumes in question.' Your Lord- 
ship did not think it necessary to proceed to such a measure, 
but I felt, and always have felt, that, if ever you determined 
on it, I was bound to obey." 

That day at length came, and I conclude this portion of my 
narrative, with relating the circumstances of it. 

From the time that I had entered upon the duties of Public 
Tutor at my College, when my doctrinal views were very dif- 
ferent from what they were in 1841, 1 had meditated a com- 
6 



122 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

ment upon the Articles. Then, when the Movement was in its 
swing, friends had said to me, "What will you make of the 
Articles ? " but I did not share the apprehension which their 
question implied. Whether, as time went on, I should have 
been forced, by the necessities of the original theory of the 
Movement, to put on paper the speculations which I had about 
them, I am not able to conjecture. The actual cause of my 
doing so, in the beginning of 1841, was the restlessness, actual 
and prospective, of those who neither liked the Via Media, nor 
my strong judgment against Rome. I had been enjoined, I 
think by my Bishop, to keep these men straight, and I wished 
so to do : but their tangible difficulty was subscription to the 
Articles ; and thus the question of the Articles came before 
me. It was thrown in our teeth : "How can you manage to 
sign the Articles ? they are directly against Rome." " Against 
Rome?" I made answer, "What do you mean by 'Rome?' " 
and then I proceeded to make distinctions, of which I shall 
now give an account. 

By '^ Roman doctrine " might be meant one of three things i 
1, the Catholic teaching of the early centuries ; or 2, the/or^' 
mal dogmas of Home as contained in the later Councils, 
especially the Council of Trent, and as condensed in the Creed 
of Pope Pius IV. ; 3, the actual popular beliefs and usages 
sanctioned by Rome in the countries in communion with it, 
over and above the dogmas ; and these I called '^ dominant 
errors." Now Protestants commonly thought that in all three 
senses, " Roman doctrine " was condemned in the Articles : I 
thought that the Catholic teaching was not condemned ; that 
the dominant errors were ; and as to the formal dogmas, that 
some were, some were not, and that the line had to be drawn 
between them. Thus, 1, the use of Prayers for the dead was 
a Catholic doctrine, — not condemned ; 3, the prison of Purga- 
tory was a Roman dogma, — which was condemned; but the 
infallibility of Ecumenical Councils was a Roman dogma, — 
not condemned ; and 3, the fire of Purgatory was an authorized 
and popular error, not a dogma, — ^which was condemned. 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 123 

Further, I considered that the difficulties felt by the persons 
whom I have mentioned, mainly lay in their mistaking, 1, 
Catholic teaching, which was not condemned in the Articles, 
for Koman dogma which was condemned ; and 2, Roman dog- 
ma which was not condemned in the Articles, for dominant 
error which was. If they went further than this, I had 
nothing more to say to them. 

A further motive which I had for my attempt, was the 
desire to ascertain the ultimate points of contrariety between 
the Roman and Anglican creeds, and to make them as few as 
possible. I thought that each creed was obscured and mis- 
represented by a dominant circumambient " Popery" and Prot- 
estantism. 

The main thesis then of my Essay was this : — ^the Articles 
do not oppose Catholic teaching ; they but partially oppose 
Roman dogma ; they for the most part oppose the dominant 
errors of Rome. And the problem was to draw the line as to 
what they allowed and what they condemned. 

Such being the object which I had in view, what were my 
prospects of widening and defining their meaning ? The pros- 
pect was encouraging ; there was no doubt at all of the 
elasticity of the articles : to take a palmary instance, the 
seventeenth was assumed by one party to be Lutheran, by an- 
other Calvinistic, though the two interpretations were contradic- 
tory to each other ; why then should not other articles be drawn 
up with a vagueness of an equally intense character? I 
wanted to ascertain what was the limit of that elasticity in the 
direction of Roman dogma. But next, I had a way of inquiry 
of my own, which I state without defending. I instanced it 
afterwards in my Essay on Doctrinal Development. That 
work, I believe, I have not read since I published it, and I 
doubt not at all that I have made many mistakes in it ; — 
partly from my ignorance of the details of doctrine as the 
Church of Rome holds them, but partly from my impatience 
to clear as large a range for the ^principle of doctrinal Develop- 
ment (waiving the question of historical fact) as was con- 



124: HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 

sistent with the strict Apostolicity and identity of the Catholic 
Creed. In like manner, as regards the 39 Articles, my 
method of inquiry was to leap in medias res. I wished to in- 
stitute an inquiry how far, in critical fairness, the text could 
be opened ; I was aiming far more at ascertaining what a 
man who subscribed it might hold than what he must, so that 
my conclusions were negative rather than positive. It was 
but a first essay. And I made it with the full recognition and 
consciousness, which I have already expressed in my Pro- 
phetical Office, as regards the Via Media, that I was making 
only " a first approximation to a required solution ; " — " a 
series of illustrations supplying hints in the removal" of a 
difficulty, and with full acknowledgment " that in minor points, 
whether in question of fact or of judgment, there was room 
for difference or error of opinion," and tbat I " should not be 
ashamed to o^vn a mistake, if it were proved against me, nor 
reluctant to bear the justblame of it." — ^P. 31. 

In addition, I was embarrassed in consequence of my wish 
to go as far as was possible, in interpreting the Articles in the 
direction of Roman dogma, without disclosing what I was 
doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting, who might 
be thereby encouraged to go still further than at present they 
found in themselves any call to do. 

1. But in the way of such an attempt comes the prompt 
objection that the Articles were actually drawn up against 
" Popery," and therefore it was transcendently absurd and dis- 
honest to suppose that Popery, in any shape, — patristic belief, 
Tridentinc dogma, or popular corruption authoritatively sanc- 
tioned, — would be able to take refuge under their text. This 
premiss I denied. Not any religious doctrine at all, but a 
political principle, was the primary English idea at that time 
of " Popery." And what was that political principle, and 
how could it best be kept out of England? What was the 
great question in the days of Henry and Elizabeth? The 
Supremacy ; — now, was I saying one single word in favour of 
the Supremacy of the Holy See, of the foreign jurisdiction? 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 125 

No ; I did not believe in it myself. Did Henry VIII. re- 
ligiously hold Justification by faith only? did he disbelieve 
Purgatory? Was Elizabeth zealous for the marriage of the 
Clergy ? or had she a conscience against the Mass ! The 
Supremacy of the Pope was the essence of the " Popery " to 
which, at the time of the Articles, the Supreme Head or 
Governor of the English Church was so violently hostile. 

2. But again I said this: — ^let "Popery" mean what it 
would in the mouths of the compilers of the Articles, let it 
even, for argument's sake, include the doctrines of that Tri- 
dentine Council, which was not yet over when the Articles 
were drawn up, and against which they could not be simply 
directed, yet, consider, what was the religious object of the 
Government in their imposition ? merely to disown " Popery?" 
No ; it had the further object of gaining the " Papists." What 
then was the best way to induce reluctant or wavering minds, 
and these, I supposed, were the majority, to give in their ad- 
hesion to the new symbol ? how had the Arians drawn up their 
Creeds ? was it not on the principle of using vague ambiguous 
language, which to the subscribers would seem to bear a 
Catholic sense, but which, when worked out in the long run, 
would prove to be heterodox? Accordingly, there was great 
antecedent probability, that, fierce as the Articles might look 
at first sight, their bark would prove worse than their bite. I 
say antecedent probability, for to what extent that surmise 
might be true, could only be ascertained by investigation. 

3. But a consideration came up at once, which threw light 
on this surmise : — ^what if it should turn out that the very men 
who drew up the Articles, in the very act of doing so had 
avowed, or rather in one of those very Articles themselves had 
imposed on subscribers, a number of those very "Papistical" 
doctrines, which they were now thought to deny, as part and 
parcel of that very Protestantism which they were now thought 
to consider divine ? and this was the fact, and I showed it in 
my Essay. 

Let the reader observe : — the 35th Article says : " The 



126 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPmiONS. 

second Book of Homilies doth contain a godly and wholesome 
doctrine^ and necessary for these times, as doth the former 
Book of Homilies." Here the doctrine of the Homilies is re- 
cognized as godly and wholesome, and subscription to that 
proposition is imposed on all subscribers of the Articles. Let 
us then turn to the Homilies, and see what this godly doctrine 
is : I quoted from them to the following effect : 

1. They declare that the so-called "apocryphal" book of 
Tobit is the teaching of the Holy Ghost, and is Scripture. 

2. That the so-called " apocryphal" book of Wisdom is 
Scripture, and the infallible and undeceivable word of God. 

3. That the Primitive Church, next to the Apostles' time, 
and, as they imply, for almost 700 years, is no doubt most 
pure; 

4. That the Primitive Church is specially to be followed. 

5. That the Four first General Councils belong to the 
Primitive Church. 

6. That there are Six Councils which are allowed and re- 
ceived by all men. 

7. Again, they speak of a certain truth which they are en- 
forcing, as declared by God's word, the sentences of the ancient 
doctors, and judgment of the Primitive Church. 

8. Of the learned and holy Bishops and doctors of the first 
eight centuries being of good authority and credit with the 
people. 

9. Of the declaration of Christ and His Apostles and all 
the rest of the Holy Fathers. 

10. Of the authority of both Scripture and also of Augus- 
tine. 

11. Of Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and 
about thirty other Fathers, to some of whom they give the 
title of " Saint," to others of ancient Catholic Fathers and 
doctors. 

12. They declare that, not only the holy Apostles and dis- 
ciples of Christ, but the godly Fathers also before and since 
Christ were endued without doubt with the Holy Ghost. 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPIKIONS. 127 

13. That the ancient Catholic Fathers say that the 
"Lord's Supper" is the salve of immortality, the sovereign 
preservative against death, the food of immortality, the health- 
ful grace. 

14. That the Lord's blessed Body and Blood are received 
under the form of bread and wine. 

15. That the meat in the Sacrament is an invisible meat 
and a ghostly substance. 

16. That the holy Body and Blood ought to be touched 
with the mind. 

17. That Ordination is a Sacrament. 

18. That Matrimony is a Sacrament. 

19. That there are other Sacraments besides " Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper." 

20. That the souls of the Saints are reigning in joy and in 
heaven with God. 

21. That alms-deeds purge the soul from the infection and 
filthy spots of sin, and are a precious medicine, an inestimable 
jewel. 

22. That mercifiilness wipes out and washes away infirm- 
ity and weakness as salves and remedies to heal sores and 
grievous diseases. 

23. That the duty of fasting is a truth more manifest than 
it should need to be proved. 

24. That fasting, used with prayer, is of great efficacy and 
weigheth much with God ; so the Angel Raphael told Tobias. 

25. That the puissant and mighty Emperor Theodosius 
was, in the Primitive Church which was most holy and godly, 
excommunicated by St. Ambrose. 

26. That Constantine, Bishop of Rome, did condemn 
Philippicus, the Emperor, not without a cause indeed, but 
most justly. 

Putting altogether aside the question how far these sepa- 
rate theses came under the matter to which subscription was 
to be made, it was quite plain, that the men who wrote the 
Homilies, and who thus incorporated them into the Anglican 



128 . HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

system of doctrine, could not have possessed that exact dis- 
crimination between the Catholic and Protestant faith, or have 
made that clear recognition of formal Protestant principles and 
tenets, or have accepted that definition of " Roman doctrine,*' 
which is received at this day : — whence great probability accrued 
to my presentiment, that the Articles were tolerant, not only 
of what I called " Catholic teaching," but of much that was 
" Roman." 

4. And here was another reason against the notion that 
the Articles directly attacked the Roman dogmas as declared 
at Trent and as promulgated by Pius the Fourth : — ^the Coun- 
cil of Trent was not over, nor its Decrees promulgated at the 
date when the Articles were drawn up, so that those Articles 
must be aiming at something else. What was that something 
else ? The Homilies tell us : the Homilies are the best com- 
ment upon the Articles. Let us turn to the Homilies, and we 
shall find from first to last that, not only is not the Catholic 
teaching of the first centuries, but neither again are the dog- 
mas of Rome, the objects of the protest of the compilers of the 
Articles, but the dominant errors, the popular corruptions, 
authorized or suffered by the high name of Rome. As 
to Catholic teaching, nay as to Roman dogma, those Homi- 
lies, as I have shown, contained no small portion of it them- 



5. So much for the writers of the Articles and Homilies ; 
— ^they were witnesses, not authorities, and I used them as 
such ; but in the next place, who were the actual authorities 
imposing them ? I considered the imponens to be the Convoca- 
tion of 1571 ; but here again, it would be found that the very 
Convocation, which received and confirmed the 39 Articles, 
also enjoined by Canon that " preachers should be careful, that 
they should never teach aught in a sermon, to be religiously 
held and believed by the people, except that which is agreea- 
ble to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and which 
the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from 
that very doctrine." Here, let it be observed, an appeal 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 129 

is made by the Convocation imponens to the very same 
ancient authorities, as had been mentioned with such profound 
veneration by the writers of the Homilies and of the Arti- 
cles ; and thus, if the Homilies contained views of doctrine 
which now would be called Roman, there seemed* to me to 
be an extreme probability that the Convocation of 1571 
also countenanced and received, or at least did not reject, 
those doctrines. 

6. And further, when at length I came actually to look 
into the text of the Articles, I saw in many cases a patent ful- 
filment of all that I had surmised as to their vagueness and 
indecisiveness, and that, not only on questions which lay 
between Lutherans, Calvinists, and Zuinglians, but on Catho- 
lic questions also ; and I have noticed them in my Tract. In 
the conclusion of my Tract I observe : They are " evidently 
framed on the principle of leaving open large questions on 
which the controversy hinges. They state broadly extreme 
truths, and are silent about their adjustment. For instance, 
they say that all necessary faith must be proved from Scrip- 
ture ; but do not say who is to prove it. They say, that 
the Church has authority in controversies ; they do not 
say what authority. They say that it may enforce nothing 
beyond Scripture, but do not say where the remedy lies when 
it does. They say that works he/ore grace and justification 
are worthless and worse, and that works after grace and justi- 
fication are acceptable, but they do not speak at all of works 
with God's aid before justification. They say that men are 
lawfully called and sent to minister and preach, who are 
chosen and called by men who have public authority given 
them in the Congregation ; but they do not add hy whom the 
authority is to be given. They say that Councils called by 
princes may err ; they do not determine whether Councils called 
in the name of Christ may err." 

Such were the considerations which weighed with me in 
my inquiry how far the Articles were tolerant of a Catholic, 
or even a Roman interpretation ; and such was the defence 
6* 



130 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

which I made in my Tract for having attempted it. From 
what I have already said, it will appear that I have no need 
or intention at this day to maintain every particular interpre- 
tation which I suggested in the course of my Tract, nor indeed 
had I then. Whether it was prudent or not, whether it was 
sensible or not, any how I attempted only a first essay of a 
necessary work, an essay which, as I was quite prepared to 
find, would require revision and modification by means of the 
lights which I should gain from the criticism of others. I 
should have gladly withdrawn any statement, which could be 
proved to me to be erroneous ; I considered my work to be 
faulty and objectionable in the same sense in which I now con- 
sider my Anglican interpretations of Scripture to be erroneous, 
but in no other sense. I am surprised that men do not apply 
to the interpreters of Scripture generally the hard names 
which they apply to the author of Tract 90. He. held a large 
system of theology, and applied it to the Articles : Ekpiscopa- 
lians, or Lutherans, or Presbyterians, or Unitarians, hold a 
large system of theology and apply it to Scripture. Every 
theology has its difficulties ; Protestants hold justification by 
faith only, though there is no text in St. Paul which enunci- 
ates it, and though St. James expressly denies it ; do we 
therefore call Protestants dishonest? they deny that the 
Church has a divine mission, though St. Paul says that 
it is " the Pillar and ground of Truth ; " they keep the Sab- 
bath, though St. Paul says, " Let no man judge you in meat 
or drink or in respect of . . . the sabbath days." Every 
creed has texts in its favour, and again texts which run counter 
to it : and this is generally confessed. And this is what I felt 
keenly : — how had I done worse in Tract 90 than Anglicans, 
Wesleyans, and Calvinists did daily in their Sermons and their 
publications ? how had I done worse than the Evangelical 
party in their ex animo reception of the Services for Baptism 
and Visitation of the Sick.* Why was I to be dishonest and 

* For instance, let candid men consider the form of Absolution contained 
in that Prayer Book, of which all clergymen. Evangelical and Liberal as 'well 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 131 

they immaculate ? There was an occasion on which our Lord 
gave an answer, which seemed to be appropriate to my own 
case, when the tumult broke out against my Tract : — " He 
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
him." I could have fancied that a sense of their own diffi- 
culties of interpretation would have persuaded the great 
party I have mentioned to some prudence, or at least mod- 
eration, in opposing a teacher of an opposite school. But I 
suppose their alarm and their anger overcame their sense 
of justice. 

In the universal storm of indignation with which the Tract 
was received on its appearance, I recognize much of real re- 
ligious feeling, much of honest and true principle, much of 
straightforward ignorant common sense. In Oxford there was 
genuine feeling too ; but there had been a smouldering stern 
energetic animosity, not at all unnatural, partly rational, 
against its author. A false step had been made ; now was 
the time for action. I am told that, even before the publica- 
tion of the Tract, rumours of its contents had got into the hos- 
tile camp in an exaggerated form ; and not a moment was lost 

as high Church, and (I think) all persons in Fniversity office declare that 
" it containeth nothing contrary to the Word of OodC 

I challenge, in the sight of all England, Evangehcal clergymen generally, 
to put on paper an interpretation of this form of words, consistent with 
their sentiments, which shall be less forced than the most objectionable of 
the interpretations which Tract 90 puts upon any passage in the Articles. 

" Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left joozcer to His Church to absolve 
all sinners who truly repent and beUeve in Him, of His great mercy forgive 
thee thine offences ; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee 
from all thy sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. Amen." 

I subjom the Roman form, as used in England and elsewhere : " Dominus 
noster Jesus Christus te absolvat ; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo, ab 
omni vinculo excommuuicationis et interdicti, in quantum possum et tu in- 
diges. Deinde ego te absolvo k peccatis tuis, in nomine Patres et FiHi et 
Spiritus Sancti. Amen." 



132 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

in proceeding to action, when I was actually in tlie hands of 
the Philistines. I was quite unprepared for the outbreak, and 
was startled at its violence. I do not think I had any fear. 
Nay, I will add I am not sure that it was not in one point of 
view a relief to me. 

I saw indeed clearly that my place in the Movement was 
lost ; public confidence was at an end ; my occupation was 
gone. It was simply an impossibility that I could say any 
thing henceforth to good effect, when I had been posted up by 
the marshal on the buttery hatch of every College of my Univer- 
sity, after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks, and when 
in every part of the country and every class of society, through 
every organ and occasion of opinion, in newspapers, in period- 
icals, at meetings, in pulpits, at dinner-tables, in coffee-rooms, 
in railway carriages, I was denounced as a traitor who had 
laid his train and was detected in the very act of firing it 
against the time-honoured Establishment. There were indeed 
men, besides my own friends, men of name and position, who 
gallantly took my part, as Dr. Hook, Mr. Palmer, and Mr. 
Perceval : it must have been a grievous trial for themselves ; 
yet what after all could they do for me ? Confidence in me 
was lost ; — ^but I had already lost full confidence in myself. 
Thoughts had passed over me a year and a half before, which 
for the time had profoundly troubled me. They had gone : I 
had not less confidence in the power and the prospects of the 
Apostolical movement than before ; not less confidence than 
before in the grievousness of what I called the '•' dominant 
errors " of Rome : but how was I any more to have absolute 
confidence in myself ? how was I to have confidence in my 
present confidence ? how was I to be sure that I should always 
think as I thought now ? I felt that by this event a kind 
Providence had saved me from an impossible position in the 
future. 

First, if I remember right, they wished me to withdraw 
the Tract. This I refused to do : I would not do so for the 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 133 

sake of those wlio were unsettled or in danger of unsettlement. 
I would not do so for my own sake ; for how could I acquiesce 
in a mere Protestant interpretation of the Articles ? how could 
I range myself among the professors of a theology, of which it 
put my teeth on edge, even to hear the sound? 

Next they said, " Keep silence ; do not defend the Tract ; " 
I answered, " Yes, if you will not condemn it — if you will al- 
low it to continue on sale." They pressed on me whenever I 
gave way ; they fell back when they saw me obstinate. Their 
line of action was to get out of me as much as they could ; 
but upon the point of their tolerating the Tract I was obstinate. 
So they let me continue it on sale ; and they said they would 
not condemn it. But they said that this was on condition that 
I did not defend it, that I stopped the series, and that I my- 
self published my own condemnation in a letter to the Bishop 
of Oxford. I impute nothing whatever to him, he was ever 
most kind to me. Also, they said they could not answer for 
what individual Bishops might perhaps say about the Tract in 
their own charges. I agreed to their conditions. My one 
point was to save the Tract. 

Not a scrap of writing was given to me, as a pledge of the 
performance of their side of the engagement. Parts of letters 
from them were read to me, without being put into my hands. 
It was an " understanding." A clever man had warned me 
against " understandings " some six years before : I have hated 
them ever since. 

In the last words of my letter to the Bishop of Oxford I 
thus resigned my place in the Movement : — 

" I have nothing to be sorry for," I say to him, " except 
having made your Lordship anxious, and others whom I am 
bound to revere. I have nothing to be sorry for, but every 
thing to rejoice in and be thankful for. I have never taken 
pleasure in seeming to be able to move a party ; and whatever 
influence I have had, has been found, not sought after. I have 
acted because others did not act, and have sacrificed a quiet 
which I prized. May God be with me in time to come, as He 



134 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 

has been hitherto ! and He will be, if I can but keep my hand 
clean and my heart pure. I think I can bear, or at least will 
try to bear, any personal humiliation, so that I am preserved 
from betraying sacred interests, which the Lord of grace and 
power has given into my charge. 



PART V. 

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

And now that I am about to trace, as far as I can, the 
course of that great revolution of mind, which led me to leave 
my own home, to which I was bound by so many strong and 
tender ties, I feel overcome with the difficulty of satisfying 
myself in my account of it, and have recoiled from doing so, 
till the near approach of the day, on which these lines must 
be given to the world, forces me to set about the task. For 
who can know himself, and the multitude of subtle influences 
which act upon him ? and who can recollect, at the distance of 
twenty-five years, aU that he once knew about his thoughts 
and his deeds, and that, during a portion of his life, when 
even at the time his observation, whether of himself or of 
the external world, was less than before or after, by very rea- 
son of the perplexity and dismay which weighed upon him, — 
when, though it would be most unthankful to seem to imply 
that he had not all-sufficient light amid his darkness, yet a 
darkness it emphatically was? And who can gird himself 
suddenly to a new and anxious undertaking, which he might 
be able indeed to perform well, had he full and calm leisure to 
look through every thing that he has written, whether in pub- 
lished works or private letters ? but, on the other hand, as to 
that calm contemplation of the past, in itself so desirable, who 
can affi^rd to be leisurely and deliberate, while he practises on 



136 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

himself a cruel operation, the ripping up of old griefs, and the 
venturing again upon the " infandum dolorem" of years, in 
which the stars of this lower heaven were one by one going 
out ? I could not in cool blood, nor except upon the imperi- 
ous call of duty, attempt what I have set myself to do. It is 
both to head and heart an extreme trial, thus to analyze what 
has so long gone by, and to bring out the results of that ex- 
amination. I have done various bold things in my life : this 
is the boldest : and, were I not sure I should after all succeed 
in my object, it would be madness to set about it. 

In the spring of 1839 my position in the Anglican Church 
was at its height. I had supreme confidence in my controver- 
sial status, and I had a great and still growing success, in re- 
commending it to others. I had in the foregoing autumn been 
somewhat sore at the Bishop's Charge, but I have a letter 
which shows that all annoyance had passed from my mind. 
In January, if I recollect aright, in order to meet the popular 
clamour against myself and others, and to satisfy the Bishop, 
I had collected into one all the strong things which they, and 
especially I, had said against the Church of Rome, in order to 
their insertion among the advertisements appended to our pub- 
lications. Conscious as I was that my opinions in religion 
were not gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but 
were, on the contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the 
circumstances in which I had been placed, I had a scorn of 
the imputations which were heaped upon me. It was true 
that I held a large bold system of religion, very unlike the 
Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration and ad- 
justment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and 
I had as much right to do so, as the Evangelical party had, 
and more right than the Liberal, to hold their own respective 
doctrines. As I spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, in 
behalf of who would, that he might hold in the Anglican 
Church a comprecation with the Saints with Bramhall, and 
the Mass all but Transubstantiation with Andre wes, or with 



HISTORY OF ]MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 137 

Hooker that TransubstantiatioB itself is not a point for 
Churches to part communion upon, or with Hammond that a 
General Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a 
matter of faith, or with Bull that man lost inward grace by 
the fall, or with Thorndike that penance is a propitiation for 
post-baptismal sin, or with Pearson that the all-powerful name 
of Jesus is no otherwise given than in the Catholic Church. 
" Two can play at that," was often in my mouth, when men 
• of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, or 
Reformers ; in the sense that, if they had a right to speak 
loud, I had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit 
for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyran- 
nized over by a party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the 
promise contained in the motto to the Lyra, " They shall 
know the difference now." I only asked to be allowed to show 
them the difference. 

What will best describe my state of mind at the early part 
of 1839, is an Article in the British Critic for that April. I 
have looked over it now, for the first time since it was pub- 
lished ; and have been struck by it for this reason : — it con- 
tains the last words which I ever spoke as an Anglican to An- 
glicans. It may now be read as my parting address and vale- 
diction, made to my friends. I little knew it at the time. It 
reviews the actual state of things, and it ends by looking tow- 
ards the future. It is not altogether mine ; for my memory 
goes to this, — that I had asked a friend to do the work ; that 
then, the thought came on me, that I would do it myself : and 
that he was good enough to put into my hands what he had 
with great appositeness written, and I embodied it into my 
Article. Every one, I think, will recognize the greater part 
of it as mine. It was published two years before the affair of 
Tract 90, and was entitled, " The State of Religious Parties." 
In this Article, I begin by bringing together testimonies 
from our enemies to the remarkable success of our exertions. 
One writer said : " Opinions and views of a theology of a 
very marked and peculiar kind have been extensively adopted 



138 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTTS OPINIONS. 

and strenuously upheld, and are daily gaining ground among 
a considerable and influential portion of the members, as well 
as ministers of the Established Church." Another : The 
Movement has manifested itself " with the most rapid growth 
of the hot-bed of these evil days." Another : " The Via 
Media is crowded with young enthusiasts, who never presume 
to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all." 
Another : " "Were I to give you a full list of the works which 
they have produced within the short space of five years, I 
should surprise you. You would see what a task it would be 
to make yourself complete master of their system, even in its 
present probably immature state. The writers have adopted 
the motto, ' In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' 
With regard to confidence, they have justified their adopting 
it ; but as to quietness, it is not very quiet to pour forth such 
a succession of controversial publications." Another : " The 
spread of these doctrines is in fact now having the efiect of 
rendering all other distinctions obsolete, and of severing the 
religious community into two portions, fundamentally and ve- 
hemently opposed one to the other. Soon there will be no 
middle ground left ; and every man, and especially every 
clergyman, will be compelled to make his choice between the 
two." Another : " The time has gone by, when those unfor- 
tunate and deeply regretted publications can be passed over 
without notice, and the hope that their influence would fail is 
now dead." Another : " These doctrines had already made 
fearful progress. One of the largest churches in Brighton is 
crowded to hear them ; so is the church at Leeds. There 
are few towns of note, to which they have not extended. 
They are preached in small towns in Scotland. They obtain 
in Elginshire, 600 miles north of London. I found them my- 
self in the heart of the highlands of Scotland. They are ad- 
vocated in the newspaper and periodical press. They have 
even insinuated themselves into the House of Commons." 
And, lastly, a bishop in a Charge : — It " is daily assuming a 
more serious and alarming aspect. Under the specious pre- 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPIOTONS. 139 

tence of deference to Antiquity and respect for primitive 
models, the foundations of the Protestant Church are under- 
mined by men who dwell within her walls, and those who sit 
in the Reformers' seat are traducing the Reformation." 

After thus stating the phenomenon of the time, as it pre- 
sented itself to those who did not sympathize in it, the Article 
proceeds to account for it ; and this it does by considering it as 
a reaction from the dry and superficial character of the re- 
ligious teaching and the literature of the last generation, or 
century, and as a result of the need which was felt both by the 
hearts and the intellects of the nation for a deeper philosophy, 
and as the evidence and as the partial fulfilment of that need, 
to which even the chief authors of the then generation had 
borne witness. First, I mentioned the literary influence of 
Walter Scott, who turned men's minds to the direction of the 
middle ages. "The general need," I said, " of something 
deeper and more attractive, than what had ofiered itself else- 
where, may be considered to have led to his popularity ; and 
by means of his popularity he reacted on his readers, stimu- 
lating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting before 
them visions, which, when once seen, are not easily forgotten, 
and silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might 
afterwards be appealed to as first principles." 

Then I spoke of Coleridge, thus : "While history in prose 
and verse was thus made the instrument of Church feelings 
and opinions, a philosophical basis for the same was laid in 
England by a very original thinker, who, while he indulged a 
liberty of speculation which no Christian can tolerate, and ad- 
vocated conclusions which were often heathen rather than 
Christian, yet after all instilled a higher philosophy into in- 
quiring minds, than they, had hitherto been accustomed to 
accept. In this way he made trial of his age, and succeeded 
in interesting its genius in the cause of Catholic truth." 

Then come Southey and Wordsworth, " two living poets, 
one of whom in the department of fantastic fiction, the other 
in that of philosophical meditation, have addressed themselves 



140 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

to the same high principles and feelings, and carried forward 
their readers in the same direction." 

Then comes the prediction of this reaction hazarded by " a 
sagacious observer withdrawn from the world, and surveying 
its movements from a distance," Mr. Alexander Knox. He 
had said twenty years before the date of my writing : " No 
Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence than the English 
Church, yet no Church probably has less practical influence. 
. . . The rich provision, made by the grax^e and providence of 
God, for habits of a noble kind, is evidence that men shall 
arise, fitted both by nature and ability, to discover for them- 
selves, and to display to others, whatever yet remains undis- 
covered, whether in the words or works of God." Also I re- 
ferred to " a much venerated clergyman of the last generation," 
who said shortly before his death, " Depend on it, the day will 
come, when those great doctrines, now buried, will be brought 
Out to the light of day, and then the effect will be fearful." I 
remarked upon this, that they who " now blame the impetuos- 
ity of the current, should rather turn their animadversions upon 
those who have dammed up a majestic river, till it had become 
a flood." 

These being the circumstances under which the Movement 
began and progressed, it was absurd to refer it to the act of 
two or three individuals. It was not so much a movement as 
a " spirit afloat ; " it was within us, " rising up in hearts where 
it was least suspected, and working itself, though not in secret, 
yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to admit of precaution 
or encounter on any ordinary human rules of opposition. It 
is," I continued, " an adversary in the air, a something one 
and entire, a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapa- 
ble of being grasped, as being the result of causes far deeper 
than political or other visible agencies, the spiritual awakening 
of spiritual wants." 

To make this clear, I proceed to refer to the chief preachers 
of the revived doctrines at that moment, and to draw attention 
to the variety of their respective antecedents. Dr. Hook and 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 141 

Mr. Churton represented the high Church dignitaries of the 
last century ; Mr. Perceval, the tory aristocracy ; Mr. Keble 
came from a country parsonage ; Mr. Palmer from Ireland ; 
Dr. Pusey from the Universities of Germany, and the study 
of Arabic MSS. ; Mr. Dodsworth from the study of Prophecy ; 
Mr. Oakeley had gained his views, as he himself expressed it, 
" partly by study, partly by reflection, partly by conversation 
with one or two friends, inquirers like himself:" while I speak 
of myself as being " much indebted to the friendship of Arch- 
bishop Whately." And thus I am led on to ask, "What head 
of a sect is there ? What march of opinions can be traced 
from mind to mind among preachers such as these ? They are 
one and all in their degree the organs of one Sentiment, 
which has risen up simultaneously in many places very mys- 
teriously." 

My train of thought next led me to speak of the disciples 
of the Movement, and I freely acknowledged and lamented 
that they needed to be kept in order. It is very much to the 
purpose to draw attention to this point now, when such extrav- 
agances as then occurred, whatever they were, are simply laid 
to my door, or to the charge of the doctrines which I advo- 
cated. A man cannot do more than freely confess what is 
wrong, say that it need not be, that it ought not to be, and that 
he is very sorry that it should be. Now I said in the Article, 
which I am reviewing, that the great truths themselves, which 
we were preaching, must not be condemned on account of such 
abuse of them. " Aberrations there must ever be, whatever 
the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, capricious, 
and wayward. A mixed multitude went out of Egypt with 
the Israelites." " There will ever be a number 'of persons," 
I continued, " professing the opinions of a movement party, 
who talk loudly and strangely, do odd or fierce things, display 
themselves unnecessarily, and disgust other people ; persons, 
too young to be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm 
to be sober, or too intellectual to be humble. Such persons 
will be very apt to attach themselves to particular persons, to 



142 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

use particular names, to say things merely because others do, 
and to act in a party-spirited way." 

While I thus republish what I then said about such ex- 
travagances as occurred in these years, at the same time I 
have a very strong conviction that they furnished quite as 
much the welcome excuse for those who were jealous or shy 
of us, as the stumbling-blocks of those who were well inclined 
to our doctrines. This too we felt at the time ; but it was our 
duty to see that our good should not be evil-spoken of ; and ac- 
cordingly two or three of the writers of the Tracts for the 
Times had commenced a Series of what they called " Plain 
Sermons," with the avowed purpose of discouraging and cor- 
recting whatever was uppish or extreme in our followers : to 
this Series I contributed a volume myself. 

Its conductors say in their Preface : "If, therefore, as time 
goes on, there shall be found persons, who admiring the innate 
beauty and majesty of the fuller system of Primitive Chris- 
tianity, and seeing the transcendent strength of its principles, 
shall become loud and voluble advocates in their behalf, speaking 
the more freely, because they do not feel them deeply as founded 
in divine and eternal truth, of such persons it is our duty to 
declare plainly, that, as we should contemplate their condition 
with serious misgiving, so would they be the last persons from 
whom we should seek support. 

" But if, on the other hand, there shall be any, who, in the 
silent humility of their lives, and in their unaffected reverence 
for holy things, show that they in truth accept these principles 
as real and substantial, and by habitual purity of heart and 
serenity of temper, give proof of their deep veneration for 
sacraments and sacramental ordinances, those persons, whether 
our professed adherents or not, best exemplify the kind of char- 
acter which the writers of the Tracts for the Times have wish- 
ed to form." 

These clergymen had the best of claims to use these beau- 
tiful words, for they were themselves, all of them, important 
writers in the Tracts, the two Mr. Kebles, and Mr. Isaac 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 143 

Williams. And this passage, with which they ushered their 
Series into the world, I quoted in the Article, of which I am 
giving an account, and I added, " What more can be required 
of the preachers of neglected truth, than that they should ad- 
mit that some, who do not assent to their preaching, are holier 
and better men than some who do ? " They were not answer- 
able for the intemperance of those who dishonoured a true doc- 
trine, provided they protested, as they did, against such intem- 
perance. •' They were not answerable for the dust and din 
which attends any great moral movement. The truer doctrines 
are, the more liable they are to be perverted." 

The notice of these incidental faults of opinion or temper 
in adherents of the movement, led on to a discussion of the 
secondary causes, by means of which a system of doctrine may 
be embraced, modified, or developed, of the variety of schools 
which may all be in the One Church, and of the succession of 
one phase of doctrine to another, while it is ever one and the 
same. Thus I was brought on to the subject of Antiquity, 
which was the basis of the doctrine of the Via Media, and by 
which was not implied a servile imitation of the past, but such 
a reproduction of it as is really young, while it is old. " We 
have good hope," I say, " that a system will be rising up, su- 
perior to the age, yet harmonizing with, and carrying out its 
higher points, which will attract to itself those who are willing 
to make a venture and to face difficulties, for the sake of some- 
thing higher in prospect. On this, as on other subjects, the 
proverb will apply, ' E^prtes fortuna adjuvat.'" 

Lastly, I proceeded to the question of that future of the 
Anglican Church, which was to be a new birth of the Ancient 
Religion. And I did not venture to pronounce upon it. 
^' About the future, we have no prospect before our minds 
whatever, good or bad. Ever since that great luminary, 
Augustine, proved to be the last bishop of Hippo, Christians 
have had a lesson against attempting to foretell, how Provi- 
dence will prosper and" [or?] "bring to an end, what it be- 
gins." Perhaps the lately revived principles would prevail in 



144 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

the Anglican Church ; perhaps they would be lost in " some 
miserable schism, or some more miserable compromise ; " but 
there was nothing rash in venturing to predict that " neither 
Puritanism nor Liberalism had any permanent inheritance 
within her." I suppose I meant to say that in the present 
age, without the aid of the Apostolical principles, the Anglican 
Church would, in the event, cease to exist. 

" As to Liberalism, we think the formularies of the Church 
will ever, with the aid of a good Providence, keep it from 
making any serious inroads upon the Clergy. Besides, it is 
too cold a principle to prevail with the multitude. Biit as re- 
garded what was called Evangelical Religion or Puritanism, 
there was more to cause alarm. I observed upon its organi- 
zation ; but on the other hand it had no intellectual basis ; no 
internal idea, no principle of unity, no theology. " Its adher- 
ents," I said, " are already separating from each other ; they 
will melt away like a snow-drift. It has no straightforward 
view on any one point on which it professes to teach, and to 
hide its poverty it has dressed itself out in a maze of words. 
We have no dread of it at all ; we only fear what it may lead 
to. It does not stand on intrenched ground, or make any pre- 
tence to a position ; it does but occupy the space between con- 
tending powers. Catholic Truth and Rationalism. Then in- 
deed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living 
principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, 
the other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending 
not for names and words, or half-views, but for elementary no- 
tions and distinctive moral characters." 

Whether the ideas of the coming age upon religion were 
true or false, they would be real. " In the present day," I 
said, " mistiness is the mother of wisdom. A man who can 
set down half-a-dbzen general propositions, which escape from 
destroying one another only by being diluted into truisms, who 
can hold the balance between opposites so skilfully as to do 
without fulcrum or beam, who never enunciates a truth with- 
out guarding himself against being supposed to exclude the 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 145 

contradictory, — who holds that Scripture is the only authority, 
yet that the Church is to be deferred to, that faith only justi- 
fies, yet that it does not justify without works, that grace does 
not depend on the sacraments, yet is not given without them, 
that bishops are a divine ordinance, yet those who have them 
not are in the same religious condition as those who have, — 
this is your safe man and the hope of the Church ; this is what 
the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, tem- 
perate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the 
channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of 
Aye and No." 

This state of things, however, I said, could not last, if men 
were to read and think. They " will not keep standing in that 
very attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism or 
orthodox Protestantism. They cannot go on forever standing 
on one leg, or sitting' without a chair, or walking with their 
feet tied, or grazing like Tityrus's stags in the air. They will 
take one view or another, but it will be a consistent view. It 
may be Liberalism, or Erastianism, or Popery, or Catholicity ; 
but it will be real." 

I concluded the Article by saying, that all who did not 
wish to be " democratic, or pantheistic, or popish," must " look 
out for some Via Media which will preserve us from what 
threatens, though it cannot restore the dead. The spirit of 
Luther is dead ; but Hildebrand and Loyola are alive. Is it 
sensible, sober, judicious, to be so very angry with those 
writers of the day, who point to the fact, that our divines of 
the seventeenth century have occupied a ground which is the 
true and intelligible mean between extremes ? Is it wise to 
quarrel with this ground, because it is not exactly what we 
should choose, had we the power of choice ? Is it true moder- 
ation, instead of trying to fortify a middle doctrine, to fling 
stones at those who do ? . . . Would you rather have your 
sons and daughters members of the Church of England or of 
theCJiurchof Rome?" 

And thus I left the matter. But, while I was thus speak-*. 
7 



146 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

ing of the future of the Movement, I was in truth winding up 
iny accounts with it, little dreaming that it was so to be ; — 
while I was still, in some way or other, feeling about for an 
available Via Media, I was soon to receive a shock which was 
to cast out of my imagination all middle courses and compro- 
mises forever. As I have said, this Article appeared in the 
April number of the British Critic ; in the July number, I can- 
not tell why, there is no Article of mine ; before the number 
for October, the event had happened to which I have alluded. 
But before I proceed to describe what happened to me in 
the summer of 1839, I must detain the reader for a while, in 
order to describe the issue of the controversy between Rome 
and the Anglican Church, as I viewed it. This will involve 
some dry discussion ; but it is as necessary for my narrative, 
as plans of buildings and homesteads are often found to be in 
the proceedings of our law courts. 

I have said already that, though the object of the Move- 
ment was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and 
felt this could not be done by mere negatives. It was 
necessary for us to have a positive Church theory erected on a 
definite basis. This took me to the great Anglican divines ; 
and then of course I found at once that it was impossible to 
form any such theory, without cutting across the teaching of the 
Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman controversy. 

When I first turned myself to it, I had neither doubt on 
the subject, nor suspicion that doubt would ever come upon 
me. It was in this state of mind that I began to read up 
Bellarmine on the one hand, and numberless Anglican writers 
on the other. But I soon found, as others had found before 
me, that it was a tangled and manifold controversy, difficult to 
master, more difficult to put out of hand with neatness and 
precision. It was easy to jnake points, not easy to sum up 
and settle. It was not easy to find a clear issue for the dis- 
pute, and still less by a logical process to decide it in favour of 
Anglicanism. This difficulty, however, had no tendency what- 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 14Y 

ever to harass or perplex me : it was a matter not of convic- 
tions, but of proofs. 

First I saw, as all see wlio study the subject, that a broad 
distinction had to be drawn between the actual state of belief 
and of usage in the countries which were in communion with 
the Roman Church, and her formal dogmas ; the latter did not 
cover the former. Sensible pain, for instance, is not implied 
in the Tridentine decree upon Purgatory ; but it was the tradi- 
tion of the Latin Church, and I had seen the pictures of souls 
in flames in the streets of Naples. Bishop Lloyd had brought 
this distinction out strongly in an Article in the British Critic, 
in 1825 ; indeed, it was one of the most common objections 
made to the Church of Rome, that she dared not commit her- 
self by formal decree, to what nevertheless she sanctioned and 
allowed. Accordingly, in my Prophetical Office, I view as 
simply separate ideas ,t Rome quiescent, and Rome in action. 
I contrasted her creed on the one hand, with her ordinary 
teaching, her controversial tone, her political and social bear- 
mg, and lier popular beliefs and practices on the other. 

While I made this distinction between the decrees and the 
traditions of Rome, I drew a parallel distinction between Angli- 
canism quiescent, and Anglicanism in action. In its formal 
creed Anglicanism was not at a great distance from Rome : far 
otherwise, when viewed in its insular spirit, the traditions of 
its establishment, its historical characteristics, its controversial 
Tancour, and its private judgment. I disavowed and con- 
demned those excesses, and caUed them " Protestantism" or 
" Ultra-Protestantism : " I wished to find a parallel disclaimer, 
(m the part of Roman controversialists, of that popular system 
of beliefs and usages in their own Church, which I called 
" Popery." When that hope was a dream, I saw that the 
controversy lay between the book-theology of Anglicanism on 
the one side, and the living system of what I called Roman 
corruption on the other. 1 could not get further than this ; 
with this result I was forced to content myself. 

These, then, were the parties in the controversy : — The 



148 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Anglican Via Media and the popular religion of Rome. And 
next, as to the issue, to which the controversy between them 
was to be brought, it was this : — the Anglican disputant took 
his stand upon Antiquity or Apostolicity, the Roman upon 
Catholicity. The Anglican said to the Roman : " There is 
but One Faith, the Ancient, and you have not kept to it ; " 
the Roman retorted : " There is but One Church, the Catho- 
lic, and you are out of it." The Anglican urged: "Your 
special beliefs, practices, modes of action, are nowhere in An- 
tiquity;" the Roman objected: "You do not communicate 
with any one Church beside your own and its offshoots, and 
you have discarded principles, doctrines, sacraments, and 
usages, which are and ever have been received in the East and 
the West." The true Church, as defined in the Creeds, was 
both Catholic and Apostolic ; now, as I viewed the con- 
troversy in which I was engaged, England and Rome had 
divided these notes or prerogatives between them ; the cause 
lay thus, Apostolicity versus Catholicity. 

However, in thus stating the matter, of course I do not 
wish it supposed that I considered the note of Catholicity 
really to belong to Rome, to the disparagement of the Anglican 
Church ; but that the special point or plea of Rome in the 
controversy was Catholicity, as the Anglican plea was Anti- 
quity. Of course I contended that the Roman idea of Catho- 
licity was not ancient and apostolic. It was in my judg- 
ment at the utmost only natural, becoming, expedient, that the 
whole of Christendom should be united in one visible body ; 
while such a unity might be, on the other hand, a mere heart- 
less and political combination. For myself, I held with the 
Anglican divines, that, in the Primitive Church, there was a 
very real mutual independence between its separate parts, 
though, from a dictate of charity, there was in fact a close 
union between them. I considered that each See and Diocese 
might be compared to a crystal, and that each was similar to 
the rest, and that the sum total of them all was only a col- 
lection of c ystals. The unity of the Church lay, not in its 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 149 

being a polity, but in its being a family, a race, coming down 
by apostolical descent from its first founders and bishops. And 
I considered this truth brought out, beyond the possibility of 
dispute, in the Epistles of St. Ignatius, in which the Bishop is 
represented as the one supreme authority in the Church, that 
is, in his own place, with no one above him, except as, for the 
sake of ecclesiastical order and experience, arrangements had 
been made by which one was put over or under another. So 
much for our own claim to Catholicity, which was so per- 
versely appropriated by our opponents to themselves : — on the 
other hand, as to our special strong point, Antiquity, while, 
of course, by means of it, we were able to condemn most em- 
phatically the novel claim of Rome to domineer over other 
Churches which were in truth her equals, further than that, 
we thereby especially convicted her of the intolerable offence 
of having added to the Faith. This was the critical head of 
accusation urged against her by the Anglican disputant, and, 
as he referred to St. Ignatius in proof that he himself was a 
true Catholic, in spite of being separated from Rome, so he 
triumphantly referred to the Treatise of Yincentius of Lerins 
upon the " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," in 
proof that the controversialists of Rome were separated in 
their creed from the Apostolical and primitive faith. 

Of course those controversialists had their own answer to 
him, with which I am not concerned in this place ; here I am 
only concerned with the issue itself, between the one party and 
the other — Antiquity versus Catholicity. 

Now I will proceed to illustrate what I have been saying 
of the status of the controversy, as it presented itself to my 
mind, by extracts from my writings of the dates of 1836, 1840, 
and 1841. And I introduce them with a remark, which es- 
pecially applies to the paper from which I shall quote first, 
of the date of 1836. That paper appeared in the March and 
April numbers of the British Magazine of that year, and was 
entitled " Home Thoughts Abroad." Now it wiU be found, 
that) in the discussion which it contains, as in various other 



150 HISTORY OP MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

writings of mine, when I was in the Anglican Church, the ar- 
gument in behalf of Kome is stated with considerable perspicu- 
ity and force. And at the time my friends and supporters 
cried out " How imprudent ! " and both at the time, and es- 
pecially at a later date, my enemies have cried*out, " How in- 
sidious ! " Friends and foes virtually agreed in their criticism ; 
I had set out the cause which I was combating to the best ad- 
vantage : this was an oiFence ; it might be from imprudence, 
it might be with a traitorous design. It was from neither the 
one nor the other ; but for the following reasons : First, I had 
a great impatience, whatever was the subject, of not bringing 
out the whole of it, as clearly as I could ; next, I wished to be 
as fair to my adversaries as possible ; and thirdly, I thought 
that there was a great deal of shallowness among our ovf n 
friends, and that they undervalued the strength of the argu- 
ment in behalf of Rome, and that they ought to be roused to a 
more exact apprehension of the position of the controversy. 
At a later date (1841), when I really felt the force of the Ro- 
man side of the question myself, as a difficulty which had to 
be met, I had a fourth reason for such frankness in argument, 
and that was, because a number of persons were unsettled far 
more than I was, as to the Catholicity of the Anglican Church. 
It was quite plain, that, unless I was perfectly candid in stat- 
ing what could be said against it, there was no chance that 
any representations, which I felt to be in its favour, or at least 
to be adverse to Rome, would have had their real weight duly 
acknowledged. At all times I had a deep conviction, to put 
the matter on the lowest ground, that " honesty was the best 
policy." Accordingly, in 1841, I expressed myself thus on 
the Anglican difficulty : " This is an objection which we must 
honestly say is deeply felt by many people, and not inconsid- 
erable ones ; and the more it is openly avowed to be a diffi- 
culty, the better ; for there is then the chance of its being ac- 
knowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as far as may 
be, by those who have the power. Flagrant evils cure them- 
selves by being flagrant ; and we are sanguine that the time is 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 151 

come when so great an evil as this is, cannot stand its ground 
against tlie good feeling and common sense of religious per- 
sons. It is the very strength of Romanism against us ; and, 
unless the proper persons take it into their serious considera- 
tion, they may look for certain to undergo the loss, as time 
goes on, of some whom they would least like to be lost to our 
Church." The measure which I had especially in view in this 
passage, was the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, which the 
then Archbishop of Canterbury was at that time concocting 
with M. Bunsen, and of which I shall speak more in the se- 
quel. And now to return to the Home Thoughts Abroad of 
the spring of 1836 : — 

The discussion contained in this composition runs in the 
form of a dialogue. One of the disputants says : " You say to 
me that the Church of Kome is corrupt. What then ? to cut 
off a limb is a strange way of saving it from the influence of 
some constitutional ailment. Indigestion may cause cramp in 
the extremities ; yet we spare our poor feet notwithstanding. 
Surely there is such a religious /ac^ as the existence of a great 
Catholic body, union with which is a Christian privilege and 
duty. Now, we English are separate from it." 

The other answers : " The present is an unsatisfactory, 
miserable state of things, yet I can grant no more. The 
Church is founded on a doctrine, — on the gospel of Truth ; it 
is a means to an end. Perish the Church (though, blessed be 
the promise, this cannot be), yet let it perish rather than the 
Truth should fail. Purity of faith is more precious to the 
Christian than unity itself. If Rome has erred grievously in 
doctrine, then it is a duty to separate even from Rome." 

His friend, who takes the Roman side of the argument, re- 
fers to the image of the Vine and its branches, which is found, 
I think, in St. Cyprian, as if a branch cut from the Catholic 
Vine must necessarily die. Also he quotes a passage from St. 
Augustine in controversy with the Donatists to the same eftect ; 
viz., that, as being separated from the body of the Church, 
they were ijpso facto cut off from the heritage of Christ. And 



152 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

he quotes St. Cyril's argument drawn from the very title Cath- 
olic, which no body or communion of men has ever dared or 
been able to appropriate, besides one. He adds, " Now, I am 
only contending for the fact, that the communion of Rome 
constitutes the main body of the Church Catholic, and that we 
are split off from it, and in the condition of the Donatists." 

The other replies, by denying the fact that the present Ro- 
man communion is like St. Augustine's Catholic Church, inas- 
much as there are to be taken into account the large Anglican 
and Greek communions. Presently he takes the offensive, 
naming distinctly the points, in which Rome has departed from 
Primitive Christianity, viz., " the practical idolatry, the vir- 
tual worship of the Virgin and Saints, which are the offence 
of the Latin Church, and the degradation of moral truth and 
duty, which follows from these." And again: "We cannot 
join a Church, did we wish it ever so much, which does not 
acknowledge our orders, refuses us the Cup, demands our ac- 
quiescence in image-worship, and excommunicates us if we do 
not receive it and all other decisions of the Tridentine Coun- 
cil." 

His opponent answers these objections by referring to the 
doctrine of " developments of gospel truth." Besides, " The 
Anglican system itself is not found complete in those early cen- 
turies ; so that the [Anglican] principle [of Antiquity] is self- 
destructive." When a man takes up this Via Media, he is a 
mere doctrinaire;^' he is like those, "who, in some matter of 
business, start up to suggest their own little crotchet, and are 
ever measuring mountains with a pocket ruler, or improving 
the planetary courses." " The Via Media has slept in libra- 
ries ; it is a substitute of infancy for manhood." 

It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835 or beginning of 
1836, 1 had the whole state of the question before me, on 
which, to my mind, the decision between the Churches de- 
pended. It is observable that the question of the position of 
the Pope, whether as the centre of unity, or as the source of 
jurisdiction, did not come into ray thoughts at all ; nor did it, 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 153 

I think I may say, to the end. I doubt whether I ever dis- 
tinctly held any of his powers to be de jure divino, while I was 
in the Anglican Church ; — not that I saw any difficulty in the 
doctrine ; not that, together with the history of St. Leo, of ^ 
which I shall speak by and by, the idea of his infallibility did 
not cross my mind, for it did, — but after all, in my view the 
controversy did not turn upon it ; it turned upon the Faith 
and the Church. This was my issue of the controversy from 
the beginning to the end. There was a contrariety of claims 
between the Roman and Anglican religions, and the history of 
my conversion is simply the process of working it out to a so- 
lution. In 1838 I illustrated it by the contrast presented to us 
between the Madonna and Child, and a Calvary. I said that 
the peculiarity of the Anglican theology was this, — that it 
" supposed the Truth to be entirely objective and detached, 
not" (as the Roman) " lying hid in the bosom of the Clmrch 
as if one with her, clinging to and (as it were) lost in her em- 
brace, but as being sole and unapproachable, as on the Cross 
or at the Resurrection, with the Church close by, but in the 
background." 

As I viewed the controversy in 1836 and 1838, so I viewed 
it in 1840 and 1841. In the British Critic of January, 1840, 
after gradually investigating how the matter lies between tlie 
Churches by means of a dialogue, I end thus : "It would 
seem, that, in the above discussion, each disputant has a strong 
point: our strong point is the argument from Primitiveness, 
that of Romanists from. Universality. It is a fact, however 
it is to be accounted for, that Rome has added to the Creed ; 
and it is a fact, however we justify ourselves, that we are es- 
tranged from the great body of Christians over the Avorld. 
And each of these two facts is at first sight a grave difficulty 
in the respective systems to which they belong." Again, 
" While Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers, recognizes 
them, and England, not deferring to the large body of the 
Church, recognizes it, both Rome and England have a point to 
clear up." 

7* 



154 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

And still more strongly in July, 1841 : 

" If the Note of schism, on the one hand, lies against Eng- 
land, an antagonist disgrace lies upon Rome, the Note of idol- 
atry. Let us not be mistaken here ; we are neither accusing 
Rome of idolatry, nor ourselves of schism ; we think neither 
charge tenable ; but still the Roman Church practises what is 
so like idolatry, and the English Church makes much of 
what is so very like schism, that without deciding what is the 
duty of a Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in 
her present state, we do seriously think that members of the 
English Church have a providential direction given them, how 
to comport themselves towards the Church of Rome, while she 
is what she is." 

One remark more about Antiquity and the Via Media, 
As time went on, without doubting the strength of the An- 
glican argument from Antiquity, I felt also that it was not 
merely our special plea, but our only one. Also I felt that the 
Via Media^ which was to represent it, was to be a sort of re- 
modelled and adapted Arrtiquity. This I observe both in 
Home Thoughts Abroad, and in the Article of the British 
Critic which I have analyzed above. But this circumstance, 
that after all we must use private judgment upon Antiquity, 
created a sort of distrust of my theory altogether, which in the 
conclusion of my Volume on the Prophetical Office I express 
thus ; " Now that our discussions draw to a close, the thought 
with which we entered on the subject, is apt to recur, when 
the excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has 
succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton 
exercise, rather than the practical conclusions of the intellect." 
And I conclude the paragraph by anticipating a line of thought 
into which I was, in the event, almost obliged to take refuge : 
"After all," I say, "the Church is ever invisible in its day,, 
and faith only apprehends it." What was this, but to give up 
the Notes of a visible Church altogether, whether the Catholic 
Note or the Apostolic ? 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 155 

The Long Vacation of 1839 began early. There had been 
a great many visitors to Oxford from Easter to Commemora- 
tion ; and Dr. Pusey and myself had attracted attention, more, 
I think, than any former year. I had put away from me the 
controversy with Rome for more than two years. In my 
Parochial Sermons the subject had never been introduced : 
there had been nothing for two years, either in my Tracts or 
in the British Critic, of a polemical character. I was return- 
ing, for the Vacation, to the course of reading which I had 
many years before chosen as especially my own. I have no 
reason to suppose that the thoughts of Rome came across my 
mind at all. About the middle of June I began to study and 
master the history of the Monophy sites. I was absorbed in the 
doctrinal question. This was from about June 13th to August 
30th. It was during this course of reading that for the first 
time a doubt came upon me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. 
I recollect on the 30th of July mentioning to a friend, whom I 
had accidentally met, how remarkable the history was ; but by 
the end of August I was seriously alarmed. 

I have described in a former work, how the history affect- 
ed me. My stronghold was Antiquity ; now here, in the mid- 
dle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christen- 
dom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I 
saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The 
Church of the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental 
communion, Rome was where she now is ; and the Protestants 
were the Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since history 
has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and 
doings of old Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Peta- 
vius calls him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dios- 
corus, in order to be converted to Rome ! 

Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing con- 
troversially, but with the one object of relating things as they 
happened to me in the course of my conversion. With this 
view I will quote a passage from the account, which I gave in 
1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839 • 



156 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 

" It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Mo- 
nophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans 
were heretics also ; difficult to find arguments against the Tri- 
dentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chal- 
cedon ; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, 
without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of re- 
ligion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and 
the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, 
were those of the Church then ; the principles and proceedings 
of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so 
— almost fearfully ; there was an awful similitude, more awful, 
because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records 
of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The 
shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like 
a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with 
the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as 
now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbear- 
ing, and relentless ; and heretics were shifting, changeable, 
reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never 
agreeing together, except by its aid ; and the civil power was 
•ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out 
of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the 
use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, 
after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and 
turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius 
and the majestic Leo ? Be my soul with the Saints ! and shall I 
lift up my hand against them ? Sooner may my right hand for- 
get her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched 
it out against a Prophet of God ! anathema to a whole tribe 
of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels ! perish the names 
of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from 
the face of the earth, ere I should do aught but fall at their 
feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually be- 
fore my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears 
and on my tongue 1 " 

Hardly had I brought my course of reading to a close, 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 157 

when the Dublin Review of that same August was put into 
my hands, by friends who were more favourable to the cause 
of Rome than I was myself. There was an Article in it on 
the " Anglican Claim " by Bishop Wiseman* This was about 
the middle of September. It was on the Donatists, with an 
application to Anglicanism. I read it, and did not see much 
in it. The Donatist controversy was known to me for some 
years, as I have instanced above. The case was not parallel 
to that of the Anglican Church. St. Augustine in Africa 
wrote against the Donatists in Africa. They were a furious 
party who made a schism within the African Church, and not 
beyond its limits. It was a case of Altar against Altar, of " 
two occupants of the same See, as that between the Non- 
jurors in England and the Established Church ; not the case 
of one Church against another, as Rome against the Oriental 
Monophysites. But my friend, an anxiously religious man, 
now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant stiU, pointed out 
the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in 
one of the extracts made in the Review, and which had escaped 
my observation. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum." He re- 
peated these words again and again, and, when he was gone, 
they kept ringing in my ears. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum ; " 
they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Dona- 
tists : they applied to that of the Monophysites. They gave a 
cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at first. They 
decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of 
Antiquity ; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles 
of Antiquity ; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself. 
"What a light was' hereby thrown upon every coiitroversy in 
the Church ! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not 
falter in their judgment, — not that, in the Arian hurricane, 
Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, 
and fall off from St. Athanasius, — not that the crowd of Ori- 
ental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest 
by the voice and the eye of St. Leo ; but that the deliberate 
judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and 



158 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 

acquiesces, is an infallible prescription and a final sentence 
against such portions of it as protest and secede. Who can 
account for the impressions which are made on him? For a 
mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a 
power which I never had felt from any words before. To take 
a familiar instance, they were like the " Turn again Whitting- 
ton " of the chime ; or, to take a more serious one, they were 
like the " Tolle, lege, — ^Tolle, lege," of the child, which con- 
verted St. Augustine himself. " Securus judicat orbis terra- 
rum ! " By those great words of the ancient Father, the 
theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized. 

I became excited at the view thus opened upon me. I 
was just starting on a round of visits ; and I mentioned my 
state of mind to two most intimate friends : I think to no 
others. After a while I got calm, and at length the vivid im- 
pression upon my imagination faded away. What I thought 
about it on reflection, I will attempt to describe presently. I 
had to determine its logical value, and its bearing upon my 
duty. Meanwhile, so far as this was certain, — I had seen the 
shadow of a hand upon the wall. It was clear that I had a 
good deal to learn on the question of the Churches, and that 
perhaps some new light was coming upon me. He who has 
seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heav- 
ens had opened and closed again. The thought for the mo- 
ment had been, " The Church of Rome will be found right 
after all ; " and then it had vanished. My old convictions 
remained as before. 

At this time I wrote my Sermon on Divine Calls, 
which I published in my volume of Plain Sermons. It 
ends thus : — 

" O that we could take that simple view of things, as to 
feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God ! 
What gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay 
even to please those whom we love, compared with this? 
What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed, 
— compared with this one aim, of ' not being disobedient to a 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 159 

heavenly vision?' What can this world offer comparable 
with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that 
heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteous- 
ness, that hope of glory, which they have, who in sincerity love 
and follow our Lord Jesus Christ ? Let us beg and pray Him 
day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully, to quick- 
en our senses, to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of 
the world to come ; so to work within us, that we may 
sincerely say, ' Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and 
after that receive me with glory. Whom have I in heaven 
but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire in com- 
parison of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is 
the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.' " 

Now to trace the succession of thoughts, and the conclu- 
sions, and the consequent innovations on my previous belief, 
and the general conduct, to which I was led, upon this sudden 
visitation. And first, I will say, whatever comes of saying it, 
for I leave inferences to others, that for years I must have 
had something of an habitual notion, though it was latent, and 
had never led me to distrust my own convictions, that my 
mind had not found its ultimate rest, and that in some sense 
or other I was on journey. During the same passage across 
the Mediterranean in which I wrote " Lead kindly light," I 
also wrote the verses, which are found in the Lyra under the 
head of " Providences," beginning, " When I look back." 
This was in 1833 ; and, since I have begun this narrative, I 
have found a memorandum under the date of September 7, 
1829, in which I speak of myself, as " now in my rooms in 
Oriel College, slowly advancing &c. and led on by God's hand 
blindly, not knowing whither He is taking me." But, what- 
ever this presentiment be worth, it was no protection against 
the dismay and disgust which I felt, in consequence of the 
dreadful misgiving, of which I have been relating the history. 
The one question was, what was I to do ? I had to make up 
my mind for myself, and others could not help me. I deter- 



160 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

mined to be guided, not by my imagination, but by my reason. 
And this L said over and over again in the years which fol- 
lowed, both in conversation and in private letters. Had it not 
been for this severe resolve, I should have been a Catholic 
sooner than I was. Moreover, I felt on consideration a posi- 
tive doubt, on the other hand, whether the suggestion did not 
come from: below. Then I said to myself, Time alone can 
solve that question. It was my business to go on as usual, to 
obey those convictions to which I had so long surrendered my- 
self, which still had possession of me, and on which my new 
thoughts had no direct bearing. That new conception of 
things should only so far influence me, as it had a logical 
claim to do so. If it came from above, it would come again ; 
— so I trusted, — and with more definite outlines. I thought 
of Samuel, before " he knew the word of the Lord ; " and 
therefore I went, and lay down to sleep again. This 
was my broad view of the matter, and mj prima facie con- 
clusion. > _ 

However, my new historical fact had to a certain point a 
logical force. Down had come the Via Media as a definite 
theory or scheme, under the blows of St. Leo. My " Pro- 
phetical Office " had come to pieces ; not indeed as an argu- 
ment against " Roman errors," nor as against Protestantism, 
but as in behalf of England. I had no more a distinctive 
plea for Anglicanism, unless I would be a Monophysite. I 
had, most painfully, to fall back upon my three original points 
of belief, which I have spoken so much of in a former pas- 
sage, — the principle of dogma, the sacramental system, and 
anti-Romanism. Of these three, the first two were better se- 
cured in Rome than in the Anglican Church. The Apostolical 
Succession, the two prominent sacraments, and the primitive 
Creeds, belonged, indeed, to the latter, but there had been and 
was far less strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the 
Anglican system than .in the Roman : in consequence, my 
main argument for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and 
special charges which I could bring against Rome. I had no 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 161 

positive Anglican theory. I was very nearly a pure Protest- 
ant. Lutherans had a sort of theology, so had Calvinists ; I 
had none. 

However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was gradu- 
ally left, was really a practical principle. It was a strong, 
though it was only a negative ground, and it still had great 
hold on me. As a boy of fifteen, I had so fully imbibed it, 
that I had actually erased in my Gradus ad Farnassum, such 
titles, under the word " Papa," as " Christi Yicarius," " sacer 
interpres," and " sceptra gerens," and substituted epithets so 
vije that I cannot bring myself to write them down here. 
The effect of this early persuasion remained as, what I have al- 
ready called it, a " stain upon my imagination." As regards my 
reason, I began in 1833 to form theories on the subject, which 
tended to obhterate'it. In the first part of Home Thoughts 
Abroad, written in that year, after speaking of Rome as " un- 
deniably the most exalted Church in the whole world," and 
manifesting, " in all the truth and beauty of the Spirit, that 
side of high mental excellence, which Pagan Rome attempted 
but could not realize, — high-mindedness, majesty, and the 
calm consciousness of power," — I proceed to say, "Alas! 
. . . the old spirit has revived, and the monster of Daniel's 
vision, untamed by its former judgments, has seized upon 
Christianity as the new instrument of its impieties, and awaits 
a second and final woe from God's hand. Surely the doctrine 
of the Genius Loci is not without foundation, and explains 
to us how the blessing or the curse attaches to cities and 
countries, not to generations. Michael is represented [in the 
book of Daniel] as opposed to the Prince of the kingdom of 
Persia. Old Rome is still alive. The Sorceress upon the 
Seven Hills, in the book of Revelation, is not the Church of 
Rome, but Rome itself, the bad spirit, which, in its former 
shape, was the animating spirit of the Fourth Monarchy." 
Then I refer to St. Malachi's Prophecy, which " makes a like 
distinction between the City and the Church of Rome. ' In 
the last persecution,' it says, ' of the Holy Roman Church, 



162 HISTOEY OF MT EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

Peter' of Rome shall be on the throne, who shall feed his flock 
in many tribulations. When these are past, the City upon the 
Seven Plills shall be destroyed, and the awful Judge shall 
judge the people.' " Then I append my moral. " I deny 
that the distinction is unmeaning ; is it nothing to be able to 
look on our Mother, to whom we owe the blessing of Christi- 
anity, with affection instead of hatred ? with pity indeed, aye, 
and fear, but not with horror? Is it nothing to rescue her 
from the hard names, which interp:qeters of prophecy have put 
upon her, as an idolatress and an enemy of God, when she is 
deceived rather than a deceiver ? Nothing to be able to account 
her priests as ordained of Grod, and anointed for their spiritual 
functions by the Holy Spirit, instead of considering her com- 
munion the bond of Satan ? " This was my first advance in 
rescuing, on an intelligible, intellectual .basis, the Roman 
Church from the designation of Antichrist ; it was not the 
Church, but the old dethroned Pagan monster, still living in 
the ruined city, that w^as Antichrist. 

In a Tract in 1838, I profess to give the opinions of the 
Fathers on the subject, and the conclusions to which I come 
are still less violent against the Roman Church, though on the 
same basis as before. I say that the local Christian Church 
of Rome has been the means of shielding the Pagan city from 
the fulness of those judgments which are due to it ; and that, 
in consequence of this, though Babylon has been utterly swept 
from the earth, Rome remains to this day. The reason 
seemed to be simply this, that, when the barbarians came 
down, God had a people in that city. Babylon was a mere 
prison of the Church ; Rome had received her as a guest. 
" That vengeance has never fallen : it is still suspended ; nor 
can reason be given why Rome has not fallen under the rule 
of God's general dealings with His rebellious creatures, ex- 
cept that a Christian Church is still in that city, sanctifying it, 
interceding for it, saving it." I add in a note, " No opinion, 
one way or the other, is here expressed as to the question, how 
far, as the local Church has saved Rome, so Rome has cor- 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS/ 163 

rupted the local Church ; or whether the local Church in con- 
sequence, or again whether other Churches elsewhere, may 
or may not be types of Antichrist." I quote all this in order 
to show how Bishop Newton was stiU upon my mind even in 
1838 ; and how I was feeling after some other interpretation 
of prophecy instead of his, and not without a good deal of 
hesitation. 

However, I have found notes written in March, 1839, 
which anticipate my Article in the British Critic of October, 
1840, in which I contended that the Churches of Rome and 
England were both one, and also the one true Church, for the 
very reason that they had both been stigmatized by the name 
of Antichrist, proving my point from the text, " If they have 
called the Master of the House Beelzebub, how much more 
them of His household," and quoting largely from Puritans 
and Independents to show that, in their mouths, the Anglican 
Church is Antichrist and Antichristian as well as the Roman. 
I urged in that article that the calumny of being Antichrist 
is almost " one of the notes of the Church ; " and that " there 
is no medium between a Yice-Christ and Anti-Christ ; " for 
" it is not the acts that make the difference between them, but 
the authority for those acts." This of course was a new mode 
of viewing the question ; but we cannot unmake ourselves or 
change our habits in a moment. It is quite clear that, if I 
dared not commit myself in 1838, to the belief that the Church 
of Rome was not a type of Antichrist, I could not have thrown 
off the unreasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished 
about her, for some time after, at least by fits and starts, in 
spite of the conviction of my reason. I cannot prove this, 
but I believe it to have been the case from what I recollect of 
myself. Nor was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and 
the Monophysites to undo the firm belief I had in the existence 
of what I called the practical abuses and excesses of Rome. 

To the inconsistencies then, to thd ambition and intrigue, 
to the sophistries of Rome (as I considered them to be) I had 
recourse in my opposition to her, both public and personal. I 



164 HISTORY OF MY EELiaiOUS OPINIONS. 

did SO by way of a relief. I had a great and growing dislike, 
after the summer of 1839, to speak against the Roman Church 
herself or her formal doctrines. I was very averse to speak 
against doctrines, which might possibly turn out to be true, 
though at the time I had no reason for thinking they were, or 
against the Church, which had preserved them. I began to 
ha,ve misgivings, that, strong as my own feelings had been, 
against her, yet in some things which I had said, I had taken 
the statements of Anglican divines for granted without weigh- 
ing them for myself. I said to a friend in 1840, in a let- 
ter, which I shall use presently, " I am troubled by doubts 
whether as it is, I have not, in what I have published, spoken 
too strongly against Rome, though I think I did it in a kind of 
faith, being determined to put myself into the English system, 
and say all that our divines said, whether I had fully weighed 
it or not." I was sore about the great Anglican divines, as if 
they had taken me in, and made me say strong things, which 
facts did not justify. Yet I did still hold in substance all that 
I had said against the Church of Rome in my Prophetical 
Office. I felt the force of the usual Protestant objections 
against her ; I believed that we had the Apostolical succession 
in the Anglican Church, and the grace of the sacraments ; I 
was not sure that the difficulty of its isolation might not be 
overcome, though I was far from sure that it could. I did 
not see any clear proof that it had committed itself to any 
heresy, or had taken part against the truth ; and I was not 
sure that it would not revive into full Apostolic purity and 
strength, and grow into union with Rome herself (Rome ex- 
plaining her doctrines, and guarding against their abuse),, that 
is, if we were but patient and hopeful. I wished for union be- 
tween the Anglican Church and Rome, if, and when, it was 
possible ; and I did what I could to gain weekly prayers for 
that object. The ground which I felt good against her was 
the moral ground : I feK I could not be wrong in striking at 
her political and social line of action. The alliance of a dog- 
matic religion with liberals, high or low, seemed to me a 



HISTOET OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 165 

providential direction against moving towards it, and a better 
" Preservative against Popery," than the three volumes of folio 
in which, I think, that prophylactic is to be found. However, 
on occasions which demanded it, I felt it a duty to give out 
plainly all that I thought, though I did not like to do so. One 
such instance occurred, when I had to publish a letter about 
Tract 90. In that letter, I said, " Instead of setting before 
the soul the Holy Trinity, and heaven and hell, the Church of 
Rome does seem to me, as a popular system, to preach the 
Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and purgatory." On this occa- 
sion I recollect expressing to a friend the distress it gave me 
thus to speak ; but, I said, " How can I help saying it, if I 
think it ? and I do think it ; my Bishop calls on me to say 
out what I think ; and that is the long and the short of it." 
But I recollected Hurrell Froude's words to me, almost his dying 
words, " I must enter another protest against your cursing and 
swearing. What good can it do ? and I call it uncharitable to 
an excess. How mistaken we may ourselves be, on many 
points that are only gradually opening on us ! " 

Instead then of speaking of errors in doctrine, I was driven 
by my state of mind to insist upon the political conduct, the 
controversial bearing, and the social methods and manifesta- 
tions of Rome. And here I found a matter close at hand, 
which affected me most sensibly too, because it was before my 
eyes. I can hardly describe too strongly my feelings upon it. 
I had an unspeakable aversion to the policy and acts of Mr. 
O'Connell, because, as I thought, he associated himself with 
men of all religions and no religion against the Anglican 
Church, and advanced Catholicism by violence and intrigue. 
When then I found him taken up by the English Catholics, 
and, as I supposed, at Rome, I considered I had a fulfilment 
before my eyes how the Court of Rome played fast and loose, 
and fulfilled the bad points which I had seen put down in 
books against it. Here we saw what Rome was in action, 
whatever she might be when quiescent. Her conduct was 
simply secular and political. 



166 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

This feeling led me into the excess of being very rude to 
that zealous and most charitable man, Mr. Spencer, when he 
came to Oxford in January, 1840, to get Anglicans to set 
about praying for Unity. I myself then, or soon after, drew 
up such prayers ; it was one of the first thoughts which came 
upon me after my shock, but I was too much annoyed with the 
political action of the members of the Roman Church in Eng- 
land to wish to have any thing to do with them personally. So 
glad in my heart was I to see him when he came to my rooms, 
whither Mr. Palmer of Magdalen brought him, that I could have 
laughed for joy ; I think I did ; but I was very rude to him, 
I would not meet him at dinner, and that (though I did not 
say so) because I considered him " in loco apostatas " from the 
Anglican Church, and I hereby beg his pardon for it. I wrote 
afterwards with s^, view to apologize, but I dare say he must 
have thought that I made the matter worse, for these were my 
words to him : — 

" The news that you are praying for us is most touching, 
and raises a variety of indescribable emotions. May their 
prayers return abundantly into their own bosoms ! Why then 
do I not meet you in a manner conformable with these first 
feelings ? For this single reason, if I may say it, that your 
acts are contrary to your words. You invite us to a union of 
hearts, at the same time that you are doing all you can, not to 
restore, not to reform, not to reunite, but to destroy our 
Church. You go further than your principles require. You 
are leagued with our enemies. ' Tl e voice is Jacob's voice, 
but the hands are the hands of Esau.' This is what especially 
distresses us ; this is what we cannot understand, how Chris- 
tians, like yourselves, with the clear view you have that a 
warfare is ever waging in the world between good and evil, 
should, in the present state of England, ally yourselves 

with the side of evil against the side of good Of 

parties now in the country, you cannot but allow, that next 
to yourselves we are nearest to revealed truth. We maintain 
great and holy principles ; we profess Catholic doctrines. . . . 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 16Y 

So near are we as a body to yourselves in modes of thinking, 
as even to have been taunted with the nicknames which belong 
to you ; and, on the other hand, if there are professed infidels, 
scoffers, sceptics, unprincipled men, rebels, they are found 
among our opponents. And yet you take part with them 

against us You consent to act hand in hand [with 

these and others] for our overthrow. Alas ! all this it is that 
impresses us irresistibly with the notion that you are a politi- 
cal, not a religious party ; that, in order to gain an end on 
which you set your hearts, — an open stage for yourselves in 
England, — you ally yourselves with those who hold nothing 
against those who hold something. This is what distresses my 
own mind so greatly, to speak of myself, that, with limitations 
which need not now be mentioned, I cannot meet familiarly 
any leading persons of the Roman Communion, and least of 
all when they come on a religious errand. Break off, I would 
say, with Mr. O'Connell in Ireland and the liberal party in 
England, or come not to us with overtures for mutual prayer 
and religious sympathy." 

And here came in another feeling, of a personal nature, 
which had little to do with the argument against Rome, except 
that, in my prejudice, I connected it with my own ideas of the 
usual conduct of her advocates and instruments. I was very 
stern upon any interference in our Oxford matters on the part 
of charitable Catholics, and on any attempt to do me good 
personally. There was. nothing, indeed, at the time more 
likely to throw me back. " Why do you meddle? why cannot 
you let me alone ? You can do me no good ; you know noth- 
ing on earth about me ; you may actually do me harm ; I am 
in better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity of pur- 
pose ; and I am determined upon taking my time." Since I 
have been a Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of 
backwardness in making converts ; and Protestants have ar- 
gued from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It 
would be against my nature to act otherwise than I do ; but 
besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained in the 
experience of my own history in the past. 



168 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

This is the account which I have to give of some savage and 
ungrateful words in the British Critic of 1840 against the con- 
troversialists of Rome : " By their fruits ye shall know them. 
. . . We see it attempting to gain converts among us by un- 
real representations of its doctrines, plausible statements, bold 
assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our 
fancies, our eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false 
philosophies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and 
ducking to attract attention, as gipseys make up to truant boys, 
holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt 
gingerbread, and physic concealed in jam, and sugar-plums for 
good children. Who can but feel shame when the religion of 
Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal, is so overlaid? Who can but 
feel sorrow when its devout and earnest defenders so mistake 
its genius and its capabilities ? We Englishmen like manliness, 
openness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on us, till 
she learns these virtues, and uses them ; and then she may 
gain us, but it will be by ceasing to be what we now mean by 
Rome, by having a right, not to ' have dominion over our faith,' 
but to gain and possess our affections in the bonds of the gos- 
pel. Till she ceases to be what she practically is, a union is 
impossible between her and England ; but, if she does reform, 
(and who can presume to say that so large a part of Christen- 
dom never can ?) then it will be our Church's duty at once to 
join in communion with the continental Churches, whatever 
politicians at home may say to it, and whatever steps the civil 
power may take in consequence. And though we may not 
live to see that day, at least we are bound to pray for it ; we 
are bound to pray for our brethren that they and. we may be 
led together into the pure light of the gospel, and be one as we 
once were one. It was most touching news to be told, as we 
were lately, that Christians on the Continent were praying to- 
gether for the spiritual well-being of England. May they gain 
light, while they aim at unity, and grow in faith while they 
manifest their love ! We too have our duties to them ; not of 
reviling, not of slandering, not of hating, though political in- 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 169 

terests require it ; but the duty of loving brethren still more 
abundantly in spirit, whose faces, for our sins and their sins, 
we are not allowed to see in the flesh." 

No one ought to indulge in insinuations ; it certainly dimin- 
ishes my right to complain of slanders uttered against myself, 
when, as in this passage, I had already spoken in condemna- 
tion of that class of controversialists, to which I myself now 
belong. 

I have thus put together, as well as I could, what has to be 
said about my general state of mind from the autumn of 1839 
to the summer of 1841 ; and, having done so, I go on to nar- 
rate how my new misgivings affected my conduct, and my re- 
lations towards the Anglican Church. 

When I got back to Oxford in October, 1839, after the 
visits which I had been paying, it so happened there had been, 
in my absence, occurrences of an aAvkward character, bring- 
ing me into collision both with my Bishop and also with the 
University authorities ; and this drew my attention at once to 
the state of what would be considered the Movement party 
there, and made me very anxious for the future. In the spring 
of the year, as has been seen in the Article analyzed above, I 
had spoken of the excesses which were to be found among per- 
sons commonly included in it ; at that time I thought little of 
such an evil, but the new thoughts which had come on me 
during the Long Vacation, on the one hand made me compre- 
hend it, and on the other took away my power of effectually 
meeting it. A firm and powerful control was necessary to 
keep men straight ; I never had a strong wrist, but at the very 
time, when it was most needed, the reins had broken in my 
hands. With an anxious presentiment on my mind of the up- 
shot of the whole inquiry, which it was almost impossible for 
me to conceal from men who saw me day by day, who heard 
my familiar conversation, who came perhaps for the express 
purpose of pumping me, and having a categorical yes or no to 
their questions, — how could I expect to say any thing about 
8 



170 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

my actual, positive, present belief, which would be sustaining 
or consoling to such persons as were haunted already by doubts 
of their own ? Nay, how could I, with satisfaction to myself, 
analyze my own mind, and say what I held and what I did not ? 
or say with what limitations, shades of difference, or degrees 
of belief, I held that body of opinions which I had openly pro- 
fessed and taught ? how could I deny or assert this point or 
that, without injustice to the new view, in which the whole 
evidence for those old opinions presented itself to my mind ? 

However, I had to do what I could, and what was best, un- 
der the circumstances ; I found a general talk on the subject 
of the Article in the Dublin Review ; and, if it had affected 
me, it was not wonderful that it affected others also. As to 
myself, I felt no kind of certainty that the argument in it was 
conclusive. Taking it at the worst, granting that the Anglican 
Church had not the Note of Catholicity ; yet there were many 
Notes of the Church. Some belonged to one age or place, 
some to another. Bellarmine had reckoned Temporal Pros- 
perity among the Notes of the Church ; but the Roman Church 
had not any great popularity, wealth, glory, power, or pros- 
pects in the nineteenth century. It was not at all certain yet, 
even that we had not the Note of Catholicity ; but, if not, we 
had others. My first business, then, was to examine this ques- 
tion carefully, and see if a great deal could not be said after 
all for the Anglican Church, in spite of its acknowledged 
shortcomings. This I did in an Article " on the Catholicity 
of the English Church," which appeared in the British Critic 
of January, 1840. As to my personal distress on the point, I 
think it had gone by February 21st in that year, for I wrote 
then to Mr. Bowden about the important Article in the Dub- 
lin, thus : "It made a great impression here [Oxford] ; and, 
I say what of course I would only say to such as yourself, it 
made me for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind. 
The great speciousness of his argument is one of the things 
which have made me despond so much," that is, as to its effect 
upon others. 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 171 

But, secondly, the great stumbling-block lay in the 39 Ar- 
ticles. It was urged that here was a positive Note against 
Anglicanism : — Anglicanism claimed to hold that the Church 
of England was nothing else than a continuation in this country 
(as the Church of Rome might be in France or Spain) , of that 
one Church of which in old times Athanasius and Augustine 
were members. But, if so, the doctrine must be the same ; 
the doctrine of the Old Church must live and speak in Angli- 
can formularies, in the 39 Articles. Did it? Yes, it did; 
that is what I maintained ; it did in substance, in a true sense. 
Man had done his worst to disfigure, to mutilate, , the old 
Catholic Truth, but there it was, in spite of them, in the Articles 
still. It was there, but this must be shown. It was a matter 
of life and death to us to show it. And I believed that it could 
be shown ; I considered that those grounds of justification, 
which I gave above, when I was speaking of Tract 90, were 
sufiicient for the purpose ; and therefore I set about showing it 
at once. This was in March, 1840, when I went up to Little- 
more. And, as it was a matter of life and death with us, all 
risks must be run to show it. When the attempt was actually 
made, I had got reconciled to the prospect of it, and had no 
apprehensions as to the experiment ; but in 1840, while my 
purpose was honest, and my grounds of reason satisfactory, I 
did nevertheless recognize that I was engaged in an experi- 
mentum crucis. I have no doubt that then I acknowledged to 
myself that it would be a trial of the Anglican Church, which 
it had never undergone before, — not that the Catholic sense of 
the Articles had not been held or at least suffered by their 
framers and promulgators, and was not implied in the teaching 
of Andrewes or Beveridge, but that it had never been publicly 
recognized, while the interpretation of the day was Protestant 
and exclusive. I observe also, that, though my Tract was an 
experiment, it v as, as I said at the time, " no/ee?er," the event 
showed it ; for, when my principle was not granted, I did not 
draw back, but gave up. I would not hold office in a Church 
which would not allow my sense of the Articles. My tone was, 



172 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

" This is necessary for us, and have it we must and will, and, 
if it tends to bring men to look less bitterly on the Church of 
Rome, so much the better." 

This then was the second work to which I set myself; 
though when I got to Littlemore, other things came in the way 
of accomplishing it at the moment. I had in mind to remove 
all such obstacles as were in the way of holding the Apostolic 
and Catholic character of the Anglican teaching ; to assert the 
right of all who chose to say in the face of day, " Our Church 
teaches the Primitive Ancient faith." I did not conceal this : 
in Tract 90, it is put forward as the first principle of all, "It 
is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church, and to 
our own, to take our reformed confessions in the most Catholic 
sense they will admit : we have no duties towards their fram- 
ers." And still more pointedly in my Letter, explanatory of 
the Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf, I say : " The only peculiarity 
of the view I advocate, if I must so call it, is this — that where- 
as it is usual at this day to make the particular belief of their 
writers their true interpretation, I would make the belief of the 
Catholic Church such. That is, as it is often said that infants 
are regenerated in Baptism, not on the faith of their parents, 
but of the Church, so in like manner I would say that the 
Articles are received, not in the sense of their framers, but (as 
far as the wording will admit or any ambiguity requires it) in 
the one Catholic sense." 

A third measure which I distinctly contemplated, was the 
resignation of St. Mary's, whatever became of the question of 
the Articles ; and as a first step I meditated a retirement to 
Littlemore. I had built a Church there several years before ; 
and I wsnt there to pass the Lent of 1840, and gave myself up 
to teaching in the Poor Schools, and practising the choir. At 
the same time, I contemplated a monastic house there. I 
bought ten acres of ground and began planting ; but this great 
design was never carried out. I mention it, because it shows 
how little I had really the idea then of ever leaving the An- 
gelican Church. That I also contemplated even the further 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 1Y3 

step of giving up St. Mary's itself as early as 1839, appears 
from a letter which I wrote in October, 1840, to the friend 
whom it was most natural for me to consult on such a point. 
It ran as follows : — 

" For a year past a feeling has been growing on me that I 
ought to give up St. Mary's, but I am no fit judge in the mat- 
ter. I cannot ascertain accurately my own impressions and 
convictions, which are the basis of the difficulty, and though 
you cannot of course do this for me, yet you may help me 
generally, and perhaps supersede the necessity of my going by 
them at all. 

" First, it is certain that I do not know my Oxford parish- 
ioners ; I am not conscious of influencing them, and certainly 
I have no insight into their spiritual state. I have no personal, 
no pastoral acquaintance with them. To very few have I any 
opportunity of saying a religious word. Whatever influence I 
exert on them is precisely that which I may be exerting on 
persons out of my parish. In my excuse I am accustomed to 
say to myself that I am not adapted to get on with them, while 
others are. On the other hand, I am conscious that by 
means of my position at St. Mary's I do exert a considerable 
influence on the University, whether on Undergraduates or 
Graduates. It seems, then, on the whole that I am using St. 
Mary's, to the neglect of its direct duties, for objects not be- 
longing to it ; I am converting a parochial charge into a sort 
of University office. 

" I think I may say truly that I have begun scarcely any 
plan but for the sake of my parish, but every one has turned, 
independently of me, into the direction of the University. I 
began Saints'-days Services, daily Services, and Lectures in 
Adam de Brome's Chapel, for my parishioners ; but they have 
not come to them. In consequence I dropped the last men- 
tioned, having, while it lasted, been naturally led to direct it 
to the instruction of those who did come, instead of those who 
did not. The Weekly Communion, I believe, I did begin for 
the sake of the University. 



174 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

"Added to this the authorities of the University, the ap- 
pointed guardians of those who form great part of the attend- 
ants on my Sermons, have shovv^n a dislike of my preaching. 
One dissuades men from coming ; — the late Vice-Chancellor 
threatens to take his own children away from the Church ; and 
the present, having an opportunity last spring of preaching in 
my parish pulpit, gets up and preaches against doctrine with 
which I am in good measure identified. No plainer proof can 
be given of the feeling in these quarters, than the absurd myth, 
now a second time put forward, that ' Vice-Chancellors cannot 
be got to take the office on account of Puseyism.' 

" But further than this, I cannot disguise from myself that 
my preaching is not calculated to defend that system of re- 
ligion which has been received for 300 years, and of which the 
Heads of Houses are the legitimate maintainers in this place. 
They exclude me, as far as may be, from the University 
Pulpit ; and, though I never have preached strong doctrine in 
it, they do so rightly, so far as this, that they understand that 
my sermons are calculated to undermine things established. I 
cannot disguise from myself that they are. No one will deny 
that most of my sermons are on moral subjects, not doctrinal ; 
still I am leading my hearers to the Primitive Church, if you 
will, but not to the Church of England. Now, ought one to 
be disgusting the minds of young men with the received re- 
ligion, in the exercise of a sacred office, yet without a commis- 
sion, against the wish of their guides and governors ? 

" But this is not all. I fear I must allow that, whether I 
will or no, I am disposing them towards Rome. First, be- 
cause Rome is the only representative of the Primitive Church 
besides ourselves ; in proportion then as they arc loosened from 
the one, they will go to the other. Next, because many doc- 
trines which I have held, have far greater, or their only scope, 
in the Roman system. And, moreover, if, as is not unlikely, 
we have in process of time heretical Bishops or teachers among 
us, an evil which ijpso facto infects the whole community to 
which they belong, and if, again (what there are at this mo- 



mSTOEf OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS* 1T5 

ment symptoms of) , there be a movement in the English Roman 
Catholics to break the alliance of O'Connell and of Exeter Hall, 
strong temptations will be placed in the way of individuals, al- 
ready imbued with a tone of thought congenial to Rome, to 
join her Communion. 

" People tell me, on the other hand, that I am, whether by 
sermons or otherwise, exerting at St. Mary's a beneficial influ- 
ence on our prospective clergy ; but what if I take to myself 
the credit of seeing further than they, and of having in the 
course of the last year discovered that what they approve so 
. much is very likely to end in Romanism ? 

" The arguments which I have published against Romanism 
seem to myself as cogent as ever, but men go by their sympa- 
thies, not by argument ; and if I feel the force of this influence 
myself, who bow to the arguments, why may not others still more 
who never have in the same degree admitted the arguments ? 

" Nor can I counteract the danger, by preaching or writing 
against Rome. I seem to myself almost to have shot my last 
arrow in the Article on English Catholicity. It must be add- 
ed, that the very circumstance that I have committed myself 
against Rome has the efiect of setting to sleep people suspicious 
about me, which is painful now that I begin to have suspicions 
about myself. I mentioned my general difiiculty to A. B. a 
year since, than whom I know no one of a more fine and accu- 
rate conscience, and it was his spontaneous idea that I should 
give up St. Mary's if my feelings continued. I mentioned it 
again to him lately, and he did not reverse his opinion, only 
expressed great reluctance to believe it must be so." 

My friend's judgment was in favour of my retaining my 
living ; at least for the present ; what weighed with me most 
was his saying : " You must consider, whether your retiring 
either from the Pastoral Care only, or from writing and print- 
ing and editing in the cause, would not be a sort of scandalous 
thing, unless it were done very warily. It would be said, 
' You see he can go on no longer with the Church of England, 
except in mere Lay Communion ; ' or people might say you re- 



176 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

pented of the cause altogether. Till you see [your way to 
mitigate, if not remove this evil] I certainly should advise you 
to stay." I answered as follows : — 

" Since you think I may go on, it seems to follow that, un- 
der the circumstances, I ought to do so. There are plenty of 
reasons for it, directly it is allowed to be lawful. The follow- 
ing considerations have much reconciled my feelings to your 
conclusion. 

"1. I do not think that we have yet made fair trial how 
much the English Church will bear. I know it is a hazardous 
experiment, — ^like proving cannon. Yet we must not take it 
for granted, that the metal will burst in the operation. It has 
borne at various times, not to say at this time, a great infusion 
of Catholic truth without damage. As to the result, viz., 
whether this process will not approximate the whole English 
Church, as a body, to Rome, that is nothing to us. For what 
we know, it may be the providential means of uniting the 
whole Church in one, without fresh schizmatizing or use of 
private judgment." 

Here I observe, that, what was contemplated was the 
bursting of the Catholicity of the Anglican Church, that is, my 
subjective idea of that Church. Its bursting would not hurt 
her with the world, but would be a discovery that she was 
purely and essentially Protestant, and would be really the 
" hoisting of the engineer with his own petar." And this was 
the result. I continue : — 

" 2. Say, that I move sympathies for Rome : in the same 
sense does Hooker, Taylor, Bull, &c. Their arguments may 
be against Rome, but the sympathies they raise must be 
towards Rome ; so far as Rome maintains truths which our 
Church does not teach or enforce. Thus it is a question of 
degree between our divines and me. I may, if so be, go fur- 
ther ; I may raise sympathies more ; but I am but urging 
minds in the same direction as they do. I am doing just the 
very thing which all our doctors have ever been doing. In 
short, would not Hooker, if Yicar of St. Mary's, be in my dif- 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 177 

ficulty?" — Here it may be said, that Hooker could preach 
against Rome, and I could not ; but I doubt whether he could 
have preached effectively against Transubstantiation better 
than 1, though neither he nor I held it. 

"3. Rationalism is the great evil of the day. May not I 
consider my post at St. Mary's as a place of protest against 
it? I am more certain that the Protestant [spirit], which I 
oppose, leads to infidelity, than that which I recommend, leads 
to Rome. Who knows what the state of the University may 
be, as regards Divinity Professors in a few years hence? Any 
how, a great battle may be coming on, of which C. D.'s book 
is a sort of earnest. The whole of our day may be a battle 
with this spirit. May we not leave to another age its own 
evil, — to settle the question of Romanism ? " 

I may add that from this time I had a Curate at St. Mary's, 
who gradually took more and more of my work. 

Also, this same year, 1840, I made arrangements for giv- 
ing up the British Critic, in the following July, which were 
carried into effect at that date. 

Such was about my state of mind, on the publication of 
Tract 90 in February, 1841. The immense commotion con- 
sequent upon the publication of the Tract did not unsettle me 
again ; for I had weathered the storm : the Tract had not 
been condemned : that was the great point ; I made much of it. 

To illustrate my feelings during this trial, I will make ex- 
tracts from my letters to a friend, which have come into my 
possession. The dates are respectively March 25, April 1, 
and May 9. 

1. "I do trust I shall make no false step, and hope my 
friends will pray for me to this effect. If, as you say, a desti- 
ny hangs over us, a single false step may ruin all. I am very 
well and comfortable ; but we are not yet out of the wood." 

2. " The Bishop sent me word on Sunday to write a letter 
to him ' instanterJ So I wrote it on Monday : on Tuesday it 
passed through the press : on Wednesday it was out : and to- 
day [Thursday] it is in London. 

8* 



178 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

" I trust that things are smoothing now ; and that we have 
made a great step is certain. It is not right to boast till I am 
clear out of the wood. i. e. till I know how the letter is received 
in London. You know, I suppose, that I am to stop the 
Tracts ; but you will see in the Letter, though I speak quite 
what I feel, yet I have managed to take out on my side my 
snubbing' s worth. And this makes me anxious how it will be 
received in London. 

" I have not had a misgiving for five minutes from the 
first : but I do not like to boast, lest some harm come." 

3. " The Bishops are very desirous of hushing the matter 
up : and I certainly have done my utmost to cooperate with 
them, on the understanding that the Tract is not to be with- 
drawn or condemned." 

And to my friend, Mr. Bowden, under date of March 15, 
" The Heads, I believe, have just done a violent act : they 
have said that my interpretation of the Articles is an evasion. 
Bo not think that this will pain me. You see, no doctrine is 
censured, and my shoulders shall manage to bear the charge. 
If you knew all, or were here, you would see that I have as- 
serted a great principle, and I ought to suffer for it :-— that the 
Articles are to be interpreted, not according to the meaning of 
the writers, but (as far as the wording will admit) according 
to the sense of the Catholic Church." 

Upon occasion of Tract 90 several Catholics wrote to me ; 
I answered one of my correspondents thus : — 

" April 8. — ^You have no cause to be surprised at the dis- 
continuance of the Tracts. We feel no misgivings about it 
whatever, as if the cause of what we hold to be Catholic truth 
would suffer thereby. My letter to my Bishop has, I trust, 
had the effect of bringing the preponderating authority of the 
Church on bur side. No stopping of the Tracts can, humanly 
speaking, stop the spread of the opinions which they have in- 
culcated. 

" The Tracts are not suppressed. No doctrine or principle 
has been conceded by us, or condemned by authority. The 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 1Y9 

Bishop has but said that a certain Tract is ' objectionable/ no 
reason being stated. I have no intention whatever of yielding 
any one point which I hold on conviction ; and that the "au- 
thorities of the Church know full well." 

In the summer of 1841, I found myself at Littlemore 
without any harass or anxiety on my mind. I had determined 
to put aside aU controversy, and I set myself down to my 
translation of St. Athanasius ; but, between July and Novem- 
ber, I received three blows which broke me. 

1. I had got but a little way in my work, when my trouble 
returned on me. The ghost had come a second time. In the 
Arian History I found the very same phenomenon, in a far 
bolder shape, which I had found in the Monophysite. I had 
not observed it in 1832. Wonderful that this should come 
upon me ! I had not sought it out ; I was reading and writ- 
ing in my own line of study, far from the controversies of the 
day, on what is called a '' metaphysical " subject ; but I saw 
clearly, that in the history of Arianism, the pure Arians were 
the Protestants, the semi- Arians were the Anglicans, and that 
Rome now was what it was. The truth lay, not with the Via 
Media, but in what was called " the extreme party." As I am 
not writing a work of controversy, I need not enlarge upon 
the argument ; I have said something on the subject, in a Vol- 
ume which I published fourteen years ago. 

2. I was in the misery of this new unsettlement, when a 
second blow came upon me. The Bishops one after another 
began to charge against me. It was a formal, determinate 
movement. This was the real " understanding ; " that, on 
which I had acted on occasion of Tract 90, had come to 
nought. I think the words, which had then been used to me, 
were, that " perhaps two or three might think it necessary to 
say something in their charges ; " but by this time they had 
tided over the difficulty of the Tract, and there was no one to 
enforce the " understanding." They went on in this way, 
directing charges at me, for three whole years I recog- 



180 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

nized it as a condemnation ; it was the only one that was in 
their power. At first I intended to protest ; but I gave up the 
thought in despair. 

On October 17th, I wrote thus to a friend : "I suppose it 
will be necessary in some shape or other to reassert Tract 90 ; 
else, it will seem, after these Bishops' Charges, as if it were 
silenced, which it has not been, nor do I intend it should be. 
I wish to keep quiet ; but if Bishops speak, I will speak too. 
If the view were silenced, I could not remain in the Church, 
nor could many others ; and therefore, since it is not silenced, 
I shall take care to show that it isn't." 

A day or two after, October 22, a stranger wrote to me to 
say, that the Tracts for the Times had made a young friend of 
his a Catholic, and to ask, " would I be so good as to convert 
him back ; " I made answer : 

" If conversions to Rome take place in consequence of the 
Tracts for the Times, I do not impute blame to them, but to 
those who, instead of acknowledging such Anglican principles 
of theology and ecclesiastical polity as they contain, set theni- 
selves to oppose them. Whatever be the influence of the 
Tracts, great or small, they may become just as powerful for 
Rome, if our Church refuses them, as they would be for our 
Church if she accepted them. If our rulers speak either 
against the Tracts, or not at all, if any number of them, not 
only do not favour, but even do not suffer the principles con- 
tained in them, it is plain that our members may easily be per- 
suaded either to give up those principles, or to give up the 
Church. If this state of things goes on, I mournfully prophesy, 
not one or two, but many secessions to the Church of Rome." 

Two years afterwards, looking back on what had passed, I 
said, " There were no converts to Rome, till after the con- 
demnation of No. 90." 

3. As if all this were not enough, there came the affair of 
the Jerusalem Bishopric ; and, with a brief mention of it, I 
shall conclude. 

I think I am right in saying that it had been long a desire 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 181 

with the Prussian Court to introduce Episcopacy into the 
Evangelical Religion, which was intended in that country to 
embrace both the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. I almost 
think I heard of the project, when I was at Rome in 1833, at 
the Hotel of the Prussian Minister, M. Bunsen, who was most 
hospitable and kind, as to other English visitors, so also to my 
friends and myself. I suppose that the idea of Episcopacy, as the 
Prussian king understood it, was very different from that taught 
in the Tractarian School ; but still, I suppose also, that the chief 
authors of that school would have gladly seen such a measure 
carried out in Prussia, had it been done without compromising 
those principles which were necessary to the being of a 
Church. About the time of the publication of Tract 90, M. 
Bunsen and the then Archbishop of Canterbury were taking 
steps for its execution, by appointing and consecrating a 
Bishop for Jerusalen. Jerusalem, it would seem, was con- 
sidered a safe place for the experiment ; it was too far from 
Prussia to awaken the susceptibilities of any party at home ; 
if the project failed, it failed without harm to any one ; and, 
if it succeeded, it gave Protestantism a status in the East, 
which, in association with the Monophysite or Jacobite and 
the Nestorian bodies, formed a political instrument for Eng- 
land, parallel to that which Russia had in the Greek Church, 
and France in the Latin. 

Accordingly, in July, 1841, full of the Anglican difficulty 
on the question of Catholicity, I thus spoke of the Jerusalem 
scheme in an Article in the British Critic : " When our 
thoughts turn to the East, instead of recollecting that there 
are Christian Churches there, we leave it to the Russians to 
take care of the Greeks, and the French to take care of the 
Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting a Protestant 
Church at Jerusalem, or with helping the Jews to rebuild their • 
Temple there, or with becoming the august protectors of Nes- 
torians, Monophysites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or 
with forming a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and 
Romans together." 



182 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

I do not pretend so long after the time to give a full or ex- 
act account of this measure in detail. I will but say that in 
the Act of Parliament, under date of October 5, 1841 (if the 
copy, from which I quote, contains the measure as it passed 
the Houses), provision is made for the consecration of " British 
subjects, or the subjects or citizens of any foreign state, to be 
Bishops in any foreign country, whether such foreign subjects 
or citizens be or be not subjects or citizens of the country in 
which they are to act, and .... without requiring 
such of them as may be subjects or citizens of any foreign 
kingdom or state to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 
and the oath of due obedience to the Archbishop for the time 
being," . . . also " that such Bishop or Bishops, so conse- 
crated, may exercise, within such limits, as may from time to 
be assigned for that purpose in such foreign countries by her 
Majesty, spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of British 
congregations of the United Church of England and Ireland, 
and over such other Protestant Congregations as may be de- 
sirous of placing themselves under his or their authority." 

Now here, at the very time that the Anglican Bishops 
were directing their censure upon me for avowing an approach 
to the Catholic Church not closer than I believed the Anglican 
formularies would allow, they were on the other hand frater- 
nizing, by their act or by their sufferance, with Protestant 
bodies, and allowing them to put themselves under an Angli- 
can Bishop, without any renunciation of their errors or regard 
to the due reception of baptism and confirmation ; while there 
was great reason to suppose that the said Bishop was intended 
to make converts from the orthodox G-reeks, and the schismati- 
cal Oriental bodies, by means of the influence of England. 
This was the third blow, which finally shattered my faith in 
the Anglican Church. That Church was not only forbidding 
any sympathy or concurrence with the Church of Rome, but 
it actually was courting an intercommunion with Protestant 
Prussia and the heresy of the Orientals. The Anglican 
Church might have the Apostolical succession, as had the 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 183 

]\f onophysites ; but such acts as were in progress led me to 
the gravest suspicion, not that it would soon cease to be a 
Church, but that it had never been a Church all along. 

On October 12th I thus wrote to a friend: — "We have 
not a single Anglican in Jerusalem, so we are sending a Bish- 
op to make a communion, not to govern our own people. 
Next, the excuse is, that there are converted Anglican Jews 
there who require a Bishop ; I am told there are not half- 
a-dozen. But for them the Bishop is sent out, and for them he 
is a Bishop of the circumcision " (I think he was a converted 
Jew, who boasted of his Jewish descent), " against the Epistle 
to the Galatians pretty nearly. Thirdly, for the sake of Prus- 
sia, he is to take under him all the foreign Protestants who 
will come ; and the political advantages will be so great, from 
the influence of England, that there is no doubt they will come. 
They are to sign the Confession of Augsburg, and there is 
nothing to show that they hold the doctrine of Baptismal Re- 
generation. 

"As to myself, I shall do nothing whatever publicly, un- 
less indeed it were to give my signature to a Protest ; but I 
think it would be out of place in me to agitate, ha\dng been in 
a way silenced ; but the Archbishop is really doing most grave 
work, of which we cannot see the end." 

I did make a solemn Protest, and sent it to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and also sent it to my own Bishop, with the 
following letter : — 

" It seems as if I were never to write to your Lordship, 
without giving you pain, and I know that my present subject 
does not specially concern your Lordship ; yet, after a great 
deal of anxious thought, I lay before you the enclosed 
Protest. 

"Your Lordship will observe that I am not asking for any 
notice of it, unless you think that I ought to receive one. I 
do this very serious act, in obedience to my sense of duty. 

" If the English Church is to enter on a new course, and 
assume a new aspect, it will be more pleasant to me hereafter 



184 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

to think, that I did not suffer so grievous an event to happen, 
without bearing witness against it. 

" May I be allowed to say, that I augur nothing but evil, 
if we in any respect prejudice our title to be a branch of the 
Apostolic Church ? That Article of the Creed, I need hardly 
observe to your Lordship, is of such constraining power, that, 
if we will not claim it, and use it for ourselves, others will use 
it in their own behalf against us. Men who learn, whether 
by means of documents or measures, whether from the state- 
ments or the acts of persons in authority, that our communion 
is not a branch of the one Church, I foresee with much grief, 
will be tempted to look out for that Church elsewhere. 

" It is to me a subject of great dismay, that, as far as the 
Church has lately spoken out, on the subject of the opinions 
which I and others hold, those opinions are, not merely not 
sanctioned (for that I do not ask) , but not even suffered. 

" I earnestly hope that your Lordship will excuse my free- 
dom in thus speaking to you of some members of your Most 
Kev. and Right Rev. body. With every feeling of reverent 
attachment to your Lordship, 

. " I am, &c." 

PROTEST. 

" Whereas the Church of England has a claim on the al- 
legiance of Catholic believers only on the ground of her own 
claim to be considered a branch of the Catholic Church : 

" And whereas the recognition of heresy, indirect as well 
as direct, goes far to destroy such claim in the case of any re- 
ligious body advancing it : 

" And whereas to admit maintainers of heresy to commun- 
ion, without formal renunciation of their errors, goes far to- 
wards recognizing the same : 

" And whereas Lutheranism and Calvinism are heresies, 
repugnant to Scripture, springing up three centuries since, and 
anathematized by East as well as West : 

" And whereas it is reported that the Most Reverend Pri- 



HISTORY OF :my EELIGIOUS OPmiONS. 185 

mate and other Right Reverend Rulers of onr Church have 
consecrated a Bishop with a view to exercising spiritual juris- 
diction over Protestant, that is, Lutheran and Calvinist con- 
gregations in the East (under the provisions of an Act made 
in the last session of Parliament to amend an Act made in the 
26th year of the reign of^his Majesty King George the Third, 
intituled, ' Aji Act to empower the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
or the Archbishop of York for the time being, to consecrate to 
the office of Bishop persons being subjects or citizens of coun- 
tries out of his Majesty's dominions '), dispensing at the same 
time, not in particular cases and accidentally, but as if on prin- 
ciple and universally, with any abjuration of error on the part 
of such congregations, and with any reconciliation to the 
Church on the part of the presiding Bishop ; thereby giving 
some sort of formal recognition to the doctrines which such 
congregations maintain : 

" And whereas the dioceses in England are connected to- 
gether by so close an intercommunion, that what is done by 
authority in one, immediately affects the rest : 

" On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest of the 
English Church and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, 
by way of relieving my conscience, do hereby solemnly protest 
against the measure aforesaid, and disown it, as removing our 
Church from her present ground and tending to her disorgani- 
zation. 

"John Henry Newman. 
"November 11, 1841." 

Looking back two years afterwards on the above-mentioned 
and other acts, on the part of Anglican Ecclesiastical authori- 
ties, I observe : " Many a man might have held an abstract 
theory about the Catholic Church, to which it was difficult to 
adjust the Anglican — might have admitted a suspicion, or even 
painful doubts about the latter — ^yet never have been impelled 
onwards, had our Rulers preserved the quiescence of former 
years ; but it is the corroboration of a present, living, and en- 



186 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

ergetic heterodoxy, which realizes and makes them practical ; 
it has been the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who 
had so long been tolerant of Protestant error, which have given 
to inquiry and to theory its force and its edge." 

As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never heard 
of any good or harm it has ever done^ except what it has done 
for me ; which many think a great misfortune, and I one of 
the greatest of mercies. It brought me on to the beginning of 
the end. 



PAET VI. 

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

From the end of 1841 , I was on mj death-bed, as regards 
my membership with the Anglican Church, though at the time I 
became aware of it only by degrees. I introduce what I have 
to say with this remark, by way of accounting for the charac- 
ter of this remaining portion of my narrative. A death-bed 
has scarcely a history ; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of 
rallying and seasons of falling back ; and since the end is fore- 
seen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest 
for the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it 
is a season when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and 
when the sick man neither cares nor is able to record the 
stages of his malady. I was in these circumstances, except so 
far as I was not allowed to die in peace, — except so far as 
friends, who had still a full right to come in upon me, and the 
public world which had not, have given a sort of history to 
those last four years. But in consequence, my narrative must 
be in great measure documentary. Letters of mine to friends 
have come to me since their deaths ; others have been kindly 
lent me for the occasion ; and I have some drafts of letters, 
and notes of my own, though I have tio strictly personal or 
continuous memoranda to consult, and have unluckily mislaid 
some valuable papers. 



188 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

And first as to my position in the view of duty ; it was 
this : 1. I had given up my place in the Movement in my let- 
ter to the Bishop of Oxford in the spring of 1841 ; but 2. I 
could not give up my duties towards the many and various 
minds who had more or less been brought into it by me ; 3. I 
expected or intended gradually to fall back into Lay ^Com- 
munion ; 4. I never contemplated leaving the Church of Eng- 
land ; 5. I could not hold office in her, if I were not allowed 
to hold the Catholic sense of the Articles ; 6. I could not go 
to Rome, while she sufiered honours to be p^id to the Blessed 
Virgin and the Saints which I thought incompatible with the 
Supreme, Incommunicable Griory of the One Infinite and Eter- 
nal ; 7. I desired a union with Rome under conditions, Church 
with Church ; 8. I called Littlemore my Torres Vedras, and 
thought that some day we might advance again within the 
Anglican Church, as we had been forced to retire ; 9. I kept back 
all persons who were disposed to go to Rome with all my might. 

And I kept them back for three or four reasons ; 1 , be- 
cause what I could not in conscience do myself, I could not 
sufier them to do ; 2, because I thought that in various cases 
they were acting under excitement ; 3, while I held St. Mary's, 
because I had duties to my Bishop and to the Anglican Church ; 
and 4, in some cases, because I had received from their Anglican 
parents or superiors direct charge of them. 

This was my view of my duty from the end of 1841, to 
my resignation of St. Mary's in the autumn of 1843. And 
now I shall relate my view, during that time, of the state of 
the controversy between the Churches. 

As soon as I saw the hitch in the Anglican argument, 
during my course of reading in the summer of 1839, I began 
to look about, as I have said, for some ground which might 
supply a controversial basis for my need. The difficulty in 
question had afiected my view both of Antiquity and Catho- 
licity ; for, while the history of St. Leo showed me that the 
deliberate and eventual consent of the great body of the Church 
ratified a doctrinal decision, it also showed that the rule of An- 



HISTOEY OF :MY EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 189 

tiquity was not infringed, though a doctrine had not been pub- 
licly recognized as a portion of the dogmatic foundation of the 
Church, tiU centuries after the time of the Apostles. Thus, 
whereas the Creeds tell us that the Church is One, Holy, 
Catholic, and Apostolic, I could not prove that the Anglican 
communion was an integral part of the One -Church, on the 
ground of its being Apostolic or Catholic, without reasoning in 
favour of what are commonly called the Roman corruptions ; 
and I could not defend our separation from Rome without using 
arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines concerning our 
Lord, which are the very foundation of the Christian religion. 
The Via Media was an impossible idea ; it was what I had called 
" standing on one leg ; " and it was necessary, if my old issue 
of the controversy was to be retained, to go further either one 
way or the other. 

Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took an- 
other. I deliberately quitted the old Anglican ground as 
untenable ; but I did not do so all at once, but as I became 
more and more convinced of the state of the case. The Jeru- 
salem Bishopric was the ultimate condemnation of the old 
theory of the Via Media ; from that time the Anglican Church 
was, in my mind, either not a normal portion of that One 
Church to which the promises were made, or at least in an 
abnormal state, and from that time I said boldly, as I did in 
my Protest, and as indeed I had even intimated in my Letter to 
the Bishop of Oxford, that the Church in which I found myself 
had no claim on me, except on condition of its being a portion 
of the One Catholic Communion, and that that condition must 
ever be borne in mind as a practical matter, and had to be dis- 
tinctly proved. All this was not inconsistent with my saying 
that, at this time, I had no thought of leaving that Church ; 
because I felt some of my old objections against Rome as 
strongly as ever. I had no right, I had no leave, to act against 
my conscience. That was a higher rule than any argument 
about the Notes of the Church. 

Under these circumstances I turned for protection to the 



190 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Note of Sanctity, with a view of showing that we had at least 
one of the necessary Notes, as fully as the Church of Rome ; 
or, at least, without entering into comparisons, that we had it 
in such a sufficient sense as to reconcile us to our position, and 
to supply full evidence, and a clear direction, on the point of 
practical duty. "We had the Note of Life, — ^not any sort of 
life, not such only as can come of nature, but a supernatural 
Christian life, which could only come directly from above. 
In my Article in the British Critic, to which I have so often 
referred, in January, 1840 (before the time of Tract 90), I 
said of the Anglican Church that " she has the note of posses- 
sion, the note of freedom from party titles, the note of life, — a 
tough life and a vigorous ; she has ancient descent, unbroken 
continuance, agreement in doctrine with the Ancient Church." 
Presently I go on to speak of sanctity : " Much as Roman 
Catholics may denounce us at present as schismatical, they 
could not resist us if the Anglican communion had but that 
one note of the Church upon it, — sanctity. The Church of 
the day [4th century] could not resist Meletius ; his enemies 
were fairly overcome by him, by his meekness and holiness, 
which melted the most jealous of them." And I continue, 
" We are almost content to say to Romanists, account us not 
yet as a branch of the Catholic Church, though we be a 
branch, till we are like a branch, provided that when we do 
become like a branch, then you consent to acknowledge us," 
&c. And so I was led on in the Article to that sharp attack 
on English Catholics for their shortcomings as regards this 
Note, a good portion of which I have already quoted in 
another place. It is there that I speak of the great scandal 
which I took at their political, social, and controversial bear- 
ing ; and this was a second reason why I fell back upon the 
Note of Sanctity, because it took me away from the necessity 
of making any attack upon the doctrines of the Roman 
Church, nay from the consideration of her popular beliefs, 
and brought me upon a ground on which I felt I could not 
make a mistake ; for what is a higher guide for us in specula- 



HISTOKY OF MY- EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 191 

tion and in practice, than that conscience of right and wrong, 
/ of truth and falsehood, those sentiments of what is decorous, 
^ consistent, and noble, which our Creator has made a part of 
our original nature ? Therefore I felt I could not be wrong in 
attacking what I fancied was a fact, — the unscrupulousness, 
the deceit, and the intriguing spirit of the agents and represent- 
atives of Rome . 

This reference to Holiness as the true test of a Church 
was steadily kept in view in what I wrote in connection with 
Tract 90. I say in its Introduction, " The writer can never 
be party to forcing the opinions or projects of one school upon 
another ; rehgious changes should be the act of the whole 
body. No good can come of a change which is not a develop- 
ment of feelings springing up freely and calmly within the 
bosom of the whole body itself ; every change in religion " 
must be "attended by deep repentance; changes "must be 
" nurtured in mutual love ; we cannot agree without a super- 
natural influence ; " we must come " together to God to do for 
us what we cannot do for ourselves." In my Letter to the 
Bishop I said, " I have set myself against suggestions for con- 
sidering the differences between ourselves and the foreign 
Churches with a view to their adjustment." (I meant in the 
way of negotiation, conference, agitation, or the like.) " Our 
business is with ourselves, to make ourselves more holy, more 
self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our high calling. 
To be anxious for a copaposition of differences is to begin at 
the end. Political reconciliations are but outward and hollow, 
and fallacious. And till Roman Catholics renounce political 
efforts, and manifest in their public measures the light of holi- 
ness and truth, perpetual war is our only prospect." 

According to this theory, a religious body is part of the 
One Catholic and Apostolic Church, if it has the succession 
and the creed of the Apostles, with the note of holiness of life ; 
and there is much in such a view to approve itself to the direct 
common sense and practical habits of an Englishman. How- 
ever, with events consequent upon Tract 90, 1 sunk my theory 



192 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

to a lower level. "What could be said in apology, wlien the 
Bishops and the people of my Church, not only did not suffer, 
but actually rejected primitive Catholic doctrine, and tried to 
eject from their communion all who held it? after the Bishops' 
charges? after the Jerusalem "abomination?" Well, this 
could be said ; still we were not nothing : we could not be as 
if we never had been a Church ; we were " Samaria." This 
then was that lower level on which I placed myself, and all 
who felt with me, at the end of 1841. 

To bring out this view was the purpose of Four Sermons 
preached at St. Mary's in December of that year. Hitherto 1 
had not introduced the exciting topics of the day into the Pul- 
pit ; on this occasion I did. I did so, for the moment was 
urgent ; there was great unsettlement of mind among us, in 
consequence of those same events which had unsettled me. 
One special anxiety, very obvious, which was coming on me 
now, was, that what w^as " one man's meat was another man's 
poison." I had said even of Tract 90, " It was addressed to 
one set of persons, and has been used and commented on by 
another ; " still more was it true now, that whatever I wrote 
for the service of those whom I knew to be in trouble of mind, 
would become on the one hand matter of suspicion and slander 
in the mouths of my opponents, and of distress and surprise to 
those on the other hand, who had no difficulties of faith at all. 
Accordingly, when I published these Four Sermons at the end 
of 1843, I introduced them with a recommendation that none 
should read them who did not need them. But in truth the 
virtual condemnation of Tract 90, after that the whole difficulty 
seemed to have been weathered, was an enormous disappoint- 
ment and trial. My Protest also against the Jerusalem Bish- 
opric was an unavoidable cause of excitement in the case of 
m&nj ; but it calmed them too, for the very fact of a Protest 
was a relief to their impatience. And so, in like manner, as 
regards the Four Sermons, of which I speak, though they 
acknowledged freely the great scandal which was involved in 
the recent episcopal doings, yet at the same time they might 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 193 

be said to bestow upon the multiplied disorders and shortcom- 
ings of the Anglican Church a sort of place in the Revealed 
Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the controversy, 
and the dignity of a great principle, for unsettled minds to take 
and use, which might teach them to recognize their own con- 
sistency, and to be reconciled to themselves, and which might 
absorb into itself and dry up a multitude of their grudgings, 
discontents, misgivings, and questionings, and lead the way to 
humble, thankful, and tranquil thoughts ; — and this was the 
effect which certainly it produced on myself. 

The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid 
character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of 
its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than schism, 
of the Ten Tribes, yet in fact they were still recognized as a 
people by the Divine Mercy ; that the great prophets Elias 
and Eliseus were sent to them, and not only so, but sent to 
preach to them and reclaim them, without any intimation that 
they must be reconciled to the line of David and the Aaronic 
priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship. They were 
not in the Church, yet they had the means of grace and the 
hope of acceptance with their Maker. The application of 
all this to the Anglican Church was immediate ; — whether a 
man could assume or exercise ministerial functions under the 
circumstances, or not, might not clearly appear, though it 
must be remembered that England had the Apostolic Priest- 
hood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all ; but so far was 
clear, that there was no call at all for an Anglican to ^ leave 
his Church for Rome, though he did not believe his own to 
be part of the One Church : — and for this reason, because it 
was a fact that the kingdom of Israel was cut off from the 
Temple ; and yet its subjects, neither in a mass, nor as indi- 
viduals, neither the multitudes on Mount Carmel, nor the 
Shunammite and her household, had any command given 
them, though miracles were displayed before them, to break off 
from their own people, and to submit themselves to Judah.* 

* As I am not writing controversially, I will only here remark upon this 
9 



194 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

It is plain, that a theory such as this, Vfhether the marks 
of a divine presence and life in the Anglican Church were 
sufficient to prove that she was actually within the covenant, 
or only sufficient to prove that she was enjoying extraordinary 
and uncovenanted mercies, not only lowered her level in a 
religious point of view, but weakened her controversial basis. 
Its very novelty made it suspicious ; and there was no guar- 
antee that the process of subsidence might not continue, and 
that it might not end in a submersion. Indeed, to many 
minds, to say that England was wrong was even to say that 
Rome was right ; and no ethical reasoning whatever could 
overcome in their case the argument from prescription and 
authority. To this objection I could only answer that I did 
not make my circumstances. I fully acknowledged the force 
and effectiveness of the genuine Anglican theory, and that it 
was all but proof against the disputants of Rome ; but still 
like Achilles, it had a vulnerable point, and that St. Leo had 
found it out for me, and that I could not help it ; — that, were 
it not for matter of fact, the theory would be great indeed, it 
would be irresistible, if it were only true. When I became a 
Catholic, the Editor of a Magazine who had in former days 
accused me, to my indignation, of tending towards Rome, 
wrote to me to ask, which of the two was now right, he or I ? 
I answered him in a letter, part of which I here insert, as it 
will serve as a sort of leave-taking of the great theory, which 
is so specious to look upon, so difficult to prove, and so hope- 
less to work. 

"Nov. 8, 1845. I do not think, at all more than I did, 
that the Anglican principles which I advocated at the date 
which you mention, lead men to the Church of Rome. If I 
must specify what I mean by 'Anglican principles,' I should 
say, e. g. taking Antiquity^ not the existing Churchy as the or- 
acle of truth ; and holding that the Apostolical Succession is a 

argumeBt, that there is a great diflference between a command, which im- 
plies physical conditions, and one which is moral. To go to Jerusalem was 
3, matter of the body, not of the soul. 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 195 

sufficient guarantee of Sacramental Grace, without union with 
the Christian Church throughout the world. I think these still 
the firmest, strongest ground against Rome — that is, if they 
can he held. They have been held by many, and are far more 
difficult to refute in the Roman controversy, than those of any 
other religious body. 

" For myself, I found / could not hold them. I left them. 
From the time I began to suspect their unsoundness, I ceased 
to put them forward. When I was fairly sure of their un- 
soundness, I gave up my Living. When I was fully confident 
that the Church of Rome was the only true Church, I joined 
her. 

'^ I have felt all along that Bp. Bull's theology was the 
only theology on which the English Church could stand. I 
have felt, that opposition to the Church of Rome was part of 
that theology ; and that he who could not protest against the 
Church of Rome was no true divine in the English Church. 
I have never said, nor attempted to say, that any one in office 
in the English Chiirch, whether Bishop or incumbent, could 
be otherwise than in hostility to the Church of Rome." 

The Via Media then disappeared forever, and a new 
Theory, made expressly for the occasion, took its place. I 
was pleased with my new view. I wrote to an intimate 
friend, Dec. 13, 1841, "I think you will give me the credit, 
Carissime, of not undervaluing the strength of the feelings 
which draw one [to Rome], and yet I am (I triist) quite clear 
about my duty to remain where I am ; indeed, much clearer 
than I was some time since. If it is not presumptuous to say, 
I have ... a much more definite view of the promised inward 
Presence of Christ with us in the Sacraments now that the 
outward notes of it are being removed. And I am content to 
be with Moses in the desert, or with Elijah excommunicated 
from the Temple. I say this, putting things at the strong- 
est." 

However, my friends of the moderate Apostolical party, 
who were my friends for the very reason of my having been so 



196 HISTORY OF MY JRELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 

moderate and Anglican myself in general tone in times past, 
who had stood up for Tract 90 partly from faith in me, and cer- 
tainly from generous and kind feeling, and had thereby spared 
an obloquy which was none of theirs, were naturally surprised 
and offended at a line of argument, novel, and, as it appeared 
to them, wanton, which threw the whole controversy into con- 
fusion, stultified my former principles, and substituted, as they 
would consider, a sort of methodistic self-contemplation, espe- 
cially abhorrent both to my nature and to my past professions, 
for the plain and honest tokens, as they were commonly re- 
ceived, of a divine mission in the Anglican Church. They 
could not tell whither I was going ; and were still further an- 
noyed, when I would view the reception of Tract 90 by the 
public and the Bishops as so grave a matter, and threw about 
what they considered mysterious hints of " eventualities," and 
would not simply say, " An Anglican I was born, and an An- 
glican I will die.'" One of my familiar friends, who was in 
the country at Christmas, 1841-2, reported to me the feeling 
that prevailed about me ; and how I felt towards it will appear 
in the following letter of mine, written in answer : 

" Oriel, Dec. 24, 1841. Carissime, you cannot tell how 
sad your account of Moberly has made me. His view of the 
sinfulness of the decrees of Trent is as much against union 
of Churches as against individual conversions. To tell the 
truth, I never have examined those decrees with this object, 
and have no view; but that is very diiFerent from having a 
deliberate view against them. Could not he say which they 
are? I suppose Transubstantiation is one. A. B., though of 
course he would not like to have it repeated, does not scruple 
at that.. I have not my mind clear. Moberly must recollect 
that Palmer thinks they all bear a Catholic interpretation. 
For myself, this only I see, that there is indefinitely more in 
the Fathers against our own state of alienation from Christen- 
dom than against the Tridentine Decrees. 

" The only thing I can think of [that I can have said] is 
this, that there were persons who, if our Church committed 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 197 

herself to heresy, sooner than think that there was no Church 
anywhere, would believe the Roman to be the Church ; and 
therefore would on faith accept what they could not otherwise 
acquiesce in. I suppose, it would be no relief to him to insist 
upon the circumstance that there is no immediate danger. In- 
dividuals can never be answered for of course ; but I should 
think lightly of that man, who, for some act of the Bishops, 
should all at once leave the Church. Now, considering how 
the Clergy really are improving, considering that this row is 
even making them read the Tracts, is it not possible we may 
all be in a better state of mind seven years hence to consider 
these matters ? and may we not leave them meanwhile to the 
will of Providence ? I cannot believe this work has been of 
man ; God has a right to His own work, to do what He will 
with it. May we not try to leave it in His hands, and be con- 
tent? 

" If you learn any thing about Barter, which leads you to 
think that I can relieve him by a letter, let me know. The 
truth is this — -our good friends do not read the Fathers ; they 
assent to us from the common sense of the case : then, when 
the Fathers, and we, say more than their common sense, they 
are dreadfully shocked. 

" The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For hold- 
ing any Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. The Real Presence. 
3. That there is a grace in Ordination.* 

" Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be drawing 
up some stringent declarations of faith ? is this what Moberly 
fears ? Would the Bishop of Oxford accept them ? If so, I 
should be driven into the Refuge for the Destitute [Little- 
more]. But I promise Moberly, I would do my utmost to 
catch all dangerous persons and clap them into confinement 
there." 

* I cannot prove this at this distance of time ; but I do Hot think it 
wrong to introduce here the passage containing it, as I am imputing to the 
Bishop nothing which the world would think disgraceful, but, on the con- 
trary, what a large religious body would approve. 



198 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Christmas Day, 1841. "I have been dreaming of Mo- 
berly all night. Should not he and the like see, that it is un- 
wise, unfair, and impatient to ask others, What will you do 
under circumstances, which have not, which may never come ? 
Why bring fear, suspicion, and disunion into the camp about 
things which are merely in posse f Natural, and exceedingly 
kind as Barter's and another friend's letters were, I think 
they have done great harm. I speak most sincerely when I 
say, that there are things which I neither contemplate, nor 
wish to contemplate ; but, when I am asked about them ten 
times, at length I begin to contemplate them. 

" He surely does not mean to say, that nothing could 
separate a man from the English Church, e. g. its avowing 
Socinianism ; its holding the Holy Eucharist in a Socinian sense. 
Yet, he would say, it was not right to contemplate such things. 

" Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken's. To 
say nothing of the last miserable century, which has given us 
to start from a much lower level and with much less to spare 
than a Churchman in the 17th century, questions of doctrine 
are now coming in ; with him, it was a question of discipline. 

" If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot help think- 
ing we should all be vastly more agreed than we think now. 
Indeed, is it possible (humanly speaking) that those who have 
so much the same heart, should Vvidelyt differ? But let this 
be considered as to alternatives. What communion could we 
join? Could the Scotch or American sanction the presence of 
its Bishops and congregations in England, without incurring 
the imputation of schism, unless indeed (and is that likely ?) 
they denounced the English as heretical ? 

"Is not this a time of strange providences? is it not our 
safest course, without looking to consequences, to do simply 
what we think right day by day ? shall we not be sure to go 
wrong, if we attempt to trace by anticipation the course of 
divine Providence ? 

Has not all our misery as a Church, arisen from people 
being afraid to look difficulties in the face ? They have pal- 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 199 

Hated acts, when they should have denounced them. There 
is that good fellow, Worcester Palmer, can whitewash the 
Ecclesiastical Commission and the Jerusalem Bishopric. And 
what is the consequence? that our Church has, through cen- 
turies, ever been sinking lower and lower, till good part of its 
pretensions and professions is a mere sham, though it be a duty 
to make the best of what we have received. Yet, though 
bound to make the best of other men's shams, let us not incur 
any of our own. The truest friends of our Church are they 
who say boldly when her rulers are going wrong, and the 
consequences ; and (to speak catachrestically) they are most 
likely to die in the Church, who are, under these black circum- 
stances, most prepared to leave it. 

" And I will add, that, considering the traces of God's 
grace which surround us, I am very sanguine, or rather con- 
fident (if it is right so to speak) , that our prayers and our alms 
will come up as a memorial before God, and that all this 
miserable confusion tends to good. 

" Let us not then be anxious, and anticipate differences in 
prospect, when we agree in the present. 

"P. S. I think, when friends [i. e. the extreme party] get 
over their first unsettlement of mind and consequent vague ap- 
prehensions, which the new attitude of the Bishops, and our 
feelings upon it, have brought about, they will get contented 
and satisfied. They will see that they exaggerated things . . 
Of course it would have been wrong to anticipate what one's 
feelings would be under such a painful contingency as the 
Bishops charging as they have done, — so it seems to me 
nobody's fault. Nor is it wonderful that others" [moderate 
men] "are startled" [i. e. at my Protest, &c., &c.] ; "yet 
they should recollect that the more implicit the reverence one 
pays to a Bishop, the more keen will be one's perception of 
heresy in him. The cord is binding and compelling, till it snaps. 

" Men of reflection would have seen this, if they had 
looked that way. Last spring, a very high churchman talked 
to me of resisting my Bishop, of asking him for the Canons 



200 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

under which he acted, and so forth ; but those who have culti- 
vated a loyal feeling towards their superiors, are the most lov- 
ing servants, or the most zealous protestors. If others be- 
came so too, if the clergy of Chester denounced the heresy of 
their diocesan, they would be doing their duty, and relieving 
themselves of the share which they otherwise have in any pos- 
sible defection of their brethren. 

"St. Stephen's [December 26]. How I fidget! I now 
fear that the note I wrote yesterday only makes matters worse 
by disclosing too much. This is always my great difficulty. 

" In the present state of excitement on both sides, I think 
of leaving out altogether my reassertion of 'No. 90 in my Pre- 
face to Volume 6, and merely saying, 'As many false reports 
are at this time in circulation about him, he hopes his well- 
wishers will take this Volume as an indication of his real 
thoughts and feelings : those who are not he leaves in God's 
hand to bring them to a better mind in his own time.' What 
do you say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety of this ? " 

There was one very old friend, at a distance from^ Oxford, 
afterwards a Catholic, now dead some years, who must have 
said something to me, I do not know what, which challenged 
a frank reply ;, for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what 
words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two per- 
sons, that, as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break 
down in the event, that perhaps we were both out of the 
Church. He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842 : 
" I don't think that I ever was so shocked by any communica- 
tion which was ever made to me, as by your letter of this 
morning. It has quite unnerved me. . . I cannot but write 
to you, though I am at a loss where to begin. . . I know of 
no act by which we have dissevered ourselves from the com- 
munion of the Church Universal. . . The more I study Scrip- 
ture, the more am T impressed with the resemblance between 
the Romish principle in the Church and the Babylon of St. John. 
. . I am readyt o grieve that I ever directed my thoughts to theol- 
ogy, i^f it is indeed so uncertain as your doubts seem to indicate." 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 201 

While my old and true friends were thus in trouble about 
me, I suppose they felt not only anxiety but pain, to see that I 
was gradually surrendering myself to the influence of others, 
who had not their own claims upon me, younger men, and of 
a cast of mind uncongenial to my own. A new school of 
thought was rising, as is usual in such movements, and was 
sweeping the original party of the movement aside, and was 
taking its place. The most prominent person in it was a man 
of elegant genius, of classical mind, of rare talent in literary 
composition : — Mr. Oakeley. He was not far from my own 
age ; I had long known him, though of late years he had not 
been in residence at Oxford ; and quite lately, he has been tak- 
ing several signal occasions of renewing that kindness, which he 
ever showed towards me when we were both in the Anglican 
Church. His tone of mind was not unlike that which gave a 
character to the early movement ; he was almost a typical Oxford 
man, and, as far as I recollect, both in political and ecclesias- 
tical views, would have been of one spirit with the Oriel party 
of 1826 — 1833. But he had entered late into the movement ; 
he did not know its first years ; and, beginning with a new 
start, he was naturally thrown together with that body of 
eager, acute, resolute minds who had begun they: Catholic life 
about the same time as he, who knew nothing about the Via 
Media, but had heard much about Rome. This new party 
rapidly formed and increased, in and out of Oxford, and, as it 
so happened contemporaneously with that very summer, when I 
received so serious a blow to my ecclesiastical vieAvs from the 
study of the Monophysite controversy. These men cut into 
the original movement at an angle, fell across its line of 
thought, and then set about turning that line in its own direc- 
tion. They were most of them keenly religious men, with a 
true concern for their souls as the first matter of all, with a 
great zeal for me, but giving little certainty at the time as to 
which way they would ultimately turn. Some in the event 
have remained firm to Anglicanism, some have become Catho- 
lics, and some have found a refuge in Liberalism. Nothing 
9* 



202 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

was clearer concerning them, than that they needed to be 
kept in order ; and on me who had had so much to do with the 
making of them that duty was as clearly incumbent ; and it 
is equally clear, from what I have already said, that I was 
just the person, above all others, who could not undertake it. 
There are no friends like old friends ; but of those old friends, 
few could help me, few could understand me, many were an- 
noyed with me, some were angry, because I was breaking up 
a compact party, and some, as a matter of conscience, could 
not listen to me. I said, bitterly, " You are throwing me on 
others, whether I will or no." Yet still I had good and true 
friends around me of the old sort, in and out of Oxford too. 
But, on the other hand, though I neither was so fond of the 
persons, nor of the methods of thought which belonged to 
this new school, excepting two or three men, as of the old set, 
though I could not trust in their firmness of purpose, for, like 
a swarm of flies, they might come and go, and at length be 
divided and dissipated, yet I had an intense sympathy in their 
object and in the direction of their path, in spite of my old 
life-long prejudices. In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, 
and the decision of my reason and conscience against her 
usages, in spite of my affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had 
a secret longing love of Rome the mother of English Chris- 
tianity, and I had a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in 
whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and whose Im- 
maculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed Sermons 
made much of. And it was the consciousness of this bias in 
myself, if it is so to be called, which made me preach so 
earnestly against the danger of being swayed by our sympathy 
rather than our reason in religious inquiry. And moreover, 
the members of this new school looked up to me, as I have 
said, and did me true kindnesses, and really loved me,* and stood 
by me in trouble, when others went away, and for all this I 
was grateful ; nay, many of them were in trouble themselves, 
and in the same boat with me, and that was a further cause of 
sympathy between us ; and hence it was, when the new school 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 203 

came on in force, and into collision with the old, I had not the 
heart, any more than the power, to repel them ; I was in great 
perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood ; I took their part ; 
and, when I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak 
out, and I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, 
and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and underhand dealing from 
the majority. 

Now I will say here frankly, that this sort of charge is a 
matter which I cannot properly meet, because I cannot duly 
realize it. I have never had any suspicion of my own honesty ; 
and, when men say that I was dishonest, I cannot grasp the 
accusation as a distinct conception, such as it is possible to en- 
counter. If a man said to me, " On such a day and before 
such persons you said a thing was white, when it was black," 
I understand what is meant well enough, and I can set myself 
to prove an alibi or to explain the mistake ; or if a man said to 
me, "You tried to gain me over to your party, intending to 
take me with you to Rome, but you did not succeed," I can 
give him the lie, and lay down an assertion of my own as firm 
and as exact as his, that not from the time that I was first un- 
settled, did I ever attempt to gain any one over to myself or to 
my Romanizing opinions, and that it is only his own coxcomb- 
ical fancy which has bred such a thought in him : but my im- 
agination is at a loss in presence of those vague charges, which 
have commonly been brought against me, charges, which are 
made up of impressions, and understandings, and inferences, 
and hearsay, and surmises. Accordingly, I shall not make 
the attempt, for, in doing so, I should be dealing blows in the 
air ; what I shall attempt is to state what 1 know of myself and 
what I recollect, and leave its application to others. 

While I had confidence in the Via Media, and thought that 
nothing could overset it, I did not mind laying down large 
principles, which I saw would go further than was commonly 
perceived. I considered that to make the Via Media concrete 
and substantive, it must be much more than it was in outline ; 
that the Anglican Church must have a ceremonial, a ritual, 



204 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

and a fulness of doctrine and devotion, which it had not at 
present, if it were to compete with the Koman Church with 
any prospect of success. Such additions would not remove it 
from its proper basis, but would merely strengthen and beautify 
it : such, for instance, would be confraternities, particular de- 
votions, reverence for the Blessed Virgin, prayers for the dead, 
beautiful churches, rich offerings to them and in them, monastic 
houses, and many other observances and institutions, which I 
used to say belonged to us as much as to Rome, though Rome 
had appropriated them, and boasted of them, by reason of our 
having let them slip from us. The principle, on which all this 
turned, is brought out in one of the Letters I published on 
occasion of Tract 90. " The age is moving," I said, " towards 
something ; and most unhappily the one religious communion 
among us, which has of late years been practically in posses- 
sion of tliis something, is the Church of Rome. She alone, 
amid all the errors and evils of her practical system, has given 
free scope to the feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, rever- 
ence, devotedness, and other feelings which may be especially 
called Catholic. The question then is, whether we shall give 
them up to the Roman Church or claim them for ourselves. 
.... But if we do give them up, we must give up the men 
who cherish them. We must consent either to give up the 
men, or to admit their principles." With these feelings I 
frankly admit, that, while I was working simply for the sake 
of the Anglican Church, I did not at all mind, though I found 
myself laying down principles in its defence, which went be- 
yond that particular defence which high-and-dry men thought 
perfection, and though I ended in framing a sort of defence, 
which they might call a revolution, while I thought it a resto- 
ration. Thus, for illustration, I might discourse upon the 
" Communion of Saints" in such a manner (though I do not 
recollect doing so) as might lead the way towards devotion to 
the Blessed Virgin and the saints on the one hand, and to- 
wards prayers for the dead on the other. In a memorandum 
of the year 1844 or 1845, I thus speak on this subject: "K 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 205 

the Church be not defended on establishment grounds, it must 
be upon principles which go far beyond their immediate ob- 
ject. Sometimes I saw these further results, sometimes not. 
Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I saw them ; 
so long as I thought they were inconsistent, not with our 
Church, but only with the existing opinions, I was not un- 

^ willing to insinuate truths into our Church, which I thought 

/ had a right to be there." 

To so much I confess ; but I do not confess, I simply deny 
that I ever said any thing which secretly bore against the 
Church of England, knowing it myself, in order that others 
might unwarily accept it. It was indeed one of my great dif- 
ficulties and causes of reserve, as time went on, that I at length 
recognized in principles which I had honestly preached as if 
Anglican, conclusions favourable to the Roman Church. Of 
course I did not like to confess this ; and, when interrogated, 
was in consequence in perplexity. The prime instance of this 
was the appeal to Antiquity ; St. Leo had overset, in my own 
judgment, its force in the special argument for Anglicanism ; 
yet I was committed to Antiquity, together with the whole 
Anglican school ; what then was I to say, when acute minds 
urged this or that application of it against the Via Media f it 
was impossible that, in such circumstances, any answer could 
be given which was not unsatisfactory, or any behaviour adopt- 
ed which was not mysterious. Again, sometimes in what I 
wrote I went just as far as I saw, and could as little say more, 
as I could see what is below the horizon ; and therefore, when 
asked as to the" consequences of what I had said, had no an- 
swer to give. Again, sometimes when I was asked, whether 
certain conclusions did not follow from a certain principle, I 
might not be able to tell at the moment, especially if the mat- 
ter were complicated ; and for this reason, if for no other, be- 
cause there is great difference between a conclusion in the ab- 
stract and a conclusion in the concrete, and because a conclu- 
sion may be modified in fact by a conclusion from some oppo- 
site principle. Or it might so happen that I got simply con- 



206 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

fused, by the very clearness of the logic which was administered 
to me, and thus gave my sanction to conclusions which really 
were not mine ; and when the report of those conclusions came 
round to me through others, I had to unsay them. And then 
again, perhaps I did not like to see men scared or scandalized 
by unfeeling logical inferences, which would not have touched 
them to the day of their death, had they not been made to eat 
them. And then I felt altogether the force of the maxim of 
St. Ambrose, " Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere 
populum suum ; " — I had a great dislike of paper logic. For 
myself, it was not logic that carried me on ; as well might one 
say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. 
It is the concrete being that reasons ; pass a number of years, 
and I find my mind in a new place ; how ? the whole man 
moves ; paper logic is but the record of it. Alhthe logic in the 
world would not have made me move faster towards Kome 
than I did ; as well might you say that I have arrived at the 
end of my journey, because I see the village church before me, 
as venture to assert that the miles, over which my soul had to 
pass before it got to Rome, could be annihilated, even though 
I had had some far clearer view than I then had, that Rome 
was my ultimate destination. Glreat acts take time. At least 
this is what I felt in my own case ; and therefore to come to 
me with methods of logic, had in it the nature of a provocation, 
and, though I do not think I ever showed it, made me some- 
what indifferent how I met them, and perhaps led me, as a 
means of relieving my impatience, to be mysterious or irrel- 
evant, or to give in because I could not reply. And a greater 
trouble still than these logical mazes, was the introduction of 
logic into every subject whatever, so far, that is, as it was 
done. Before I was at Oriel, I recollect an acquaintance say- 
ing to me that " the Oriel Common Room stank of Logic." 
One is not at all pleased when poetry, or eloquence, or devo- 
tion, is considered as if chiefly intended to feed syllogisms. 
Now, in saying all this, I am saying nothing against the deep 
piety and earnestness which were characteristics of this second 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 207 

phase of the Movement, in which I have taken so prominent a 
part. What I have been observing is, that this phase had a 
tendency to bewilder and to upset me, and that instead of say- 
ing so, as I ought to have done, in a sort of easiness, for what 
I know, I gave answers at random, which have led to my ap- 
pearing close or inconsistent. 

I have turned up two letters of this period, which in a 
measure illustrate what I have been saying. The first is what 
I said to the Bishop of Oxford on occasion of Tract 90 : 

"March 20, 1841. No one can enter into my situation 
but myself. I see a great many minds working in various di- 
rections and a variety of principles with multiplied bearings ; I 
act for the best. I sincerely think that matters would not have 
gone better for the Church, had I never written. And if I 
write I have a choice of difficulties. It is easy for those who 
do not enter into those difiiculties to say, ' He ought to say 
this and not say that,' but things are wonderfully linked to- 
gether, and I cannot, or rather I would not be dishonest. 
When persons too interrogate me, I am obliged in many cases 
to give an opinion, or I seem to be underhand. Keeping si- 
lence looks like artifice. And I do not like people to consult 
or respect me, from thinking differently of my opinions from 
what I know them to be. And (again to use the proverb) 
what is one man's food is another man's poison. All these 
things make my situation very difiicult. But that collision 
must at some time ensue between members of the Church of 
opposite sentiments, I have long been aware. The time and 
mode has been in the hand of Providence ; I do not mean to 
exclude my own great imperfections in bringing it about ; yet 
I still feel obliged to think the Tract necessary. 

" Dr. Pusey has shown me your Lordship's letters to him. 
I am most desirous of saying in print any thing which I can 
honestly say to remove false impressions created by the Tract." 

The second is part of the notes of a letter sent to Dr. 
Pusey in the next year : 

" October 16, 1842. As to my being entirely >vith A. B., 



208 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

I do not know the limits of my own opinions. If A. B. 
says that this or that is a development from what I have said, 
I cannot say Yes or No. It is plausible, it may be true. Of 
course the fact that the Roman Church has so developed and 
maintained, adds great weight to the antecedent plausibility. 
I cannot assert that it is not true ; but I cannot, with that 
keen perception which some people have, appropriate it. It 
is a nuisance to me to be forced beyond what I can fairly ac- 
cept." 

There was another source of the perplexity with which at 
this time I was encompassed, and of the reserve and myste- 
riousness, of which it gave me the credit. After Tract 90 the 
Protestant world would not let me alone ; they pursued me in 
the public journals to Littlemore. Reports of all kinds were 
circulated about me. " Imprimis, why did I go up to Little- 
more at aU ? For no good purpose certainly ; I dared not tell 
why." Why, to be sure, it was hard that I should be obliged 
to say to the Editors of newspapers that I went up there to . 
say my prayers ; it was hard to have to teU the world in con- 
fidence, that I had a certain doubt about the Anglican system, 
and could not at that moment resolve it, or say what would 
come of it ; it was hard to have to confess that I had thought 
of giving up my Living a year or two before, and that this 
was a first step to it. It was hard to have to plead, that, for - 
what I knew, my doubts would vanish, if the newspapers 
would be so good as to give me time and let me alone. Who 
would ever dream of making the world his confidant ? yet I, 
was considered insidious, sly, dishonest, if I would not open 
my heart to the tender mercies of the world. But they per- 
sisted : "What was I doing at Littlemore?" Doing there? 
have I not retreated from you? have I not given up my posi- 
tion and my place ? am I alone, of Englishmen, not to have 
the privilege to go where I will, no questions asked? am I 
alone to be followed about by jealous prying eyes, who note 
down whether I go in at a back door or at the front, and who 
the men are who happen to call on me in the afternoon ? 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 209 

Cowards ! if I advanced one step, you would run away ; it is 
not you that I fear : " Di me terrent, et Jupiter liostis." It 
is because the Bishops still go on charging against me, though 
I have quite given up : it is that secret misgiving of heart 
which tells me that they do well, for I have neither lot nor 
part with them : this it is which weighs me down. I cannot 
walk into or out of my house, but curious eyes are upon me. 
Why will you not let me die in peace ? Wounded brutes creep 
into some hole to die in, and no one grudges it them. Let me 
alone, I shall not trouble you long. This was the keen heavy 
feeling which pierced me, and, I think, these are the very 
words that I used to myself. I asked, in the words of a great 
motto, "Ubi lapsus? quid feci?" One day when I entered 
my house, I found a flight of Undergraduates inside. Heads 
of Houses, as mounted patrols, walked their horses round 
those poor cottages. Doctors of Divinity dived into the hid- 
den recesses of that private tenement uninvited, and drew do- 
mestic conclusions from what they saw there. I had thought 
that an Englishman's house was his castle ; but the newspa- 
pers thought otherwise, and at last the matter came before my 
good Bishop. I insert his letter, and a portion of my reply 
to him : 

" April 12, 1842. So many of the charges against your- 
self and your friends which I have seen in the public journals 
have been, within my own knowledge, false and calumnious, 
that I am not apt to pay much attention to what is asserted 
with respect to you in the newspapers. 

''In a" [newspaper] "however, of April 9, there appears 
a paragraph in which it is asserted, as a matter of notoriety, 
that a ' so-called Anglo-Catholic Monastery is in process of 
erection at Littlemore, and that the cells of dormitories, the 
chapel, the refectory, the cloisters all may be seen advancing 
to perfection, under the eye of a Parish Priest of the Diocese 
of Oxford.' 

" Now, as I have understood that you really are possessed 
of some tenements at Littlemore — as it is generally believed 



210 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

that they are destined for the purposes of study and devotion — 
and as much suspicion and jealousy are felt about the matter, 
I am anxious to afford you an opportunity of making me an 
explanation on the subject. 

" I know you too well not to be aware that you are the 
last man living to attempt in my Diocese a revival of the Mo- 
nastic orders (in any thing approaching to the Romanist sense 
of the term) without previous communication with me — or in- 
deed that you should take upon yourself to originate any 
measure of importance without authority from the heads of 
the Church- — and therefore I at once exonerate you from the 
accusation brought against you by the newspaper I have 
quoted, but I feel it nevertheless a duty to my Diocese and 
myself, as well as to you, to ask you to put it in my power to 
contradict what, if uncontradicted, would appear to imply a 
glaring invasion of all ecclesiastical discipline on your part, or 
of inexcusable neglect and indifference to my duties on mine.''* 

"April 14, 1842. I am very much obliged by your 
Lordship's kindness in allowing me to write to you on the sub- 
ject of my house at Littlemore ; at the same time I feel it 
hard both on your Lordship and myself that the restlessness 
of the public mind should oblige you to require an explanation 
of me. 

" It is now a whole year that I have been the subject of 
incessant misrepresentation. .A year since I submitted en- 
tirely to your Lordship's authority ; and with the intention of 
following out the particular act enjoined upon me, I not only 
stopped the series of Tracts, on which I was engaged, 1but 
withdrew from all public discussion of Church matters of the 
day, or what may be called ecclesiastical politics. I turned 
myself at once to the preparation for the Press of the transla- 
tions of St. Athanasius, to which I had long wished to devote 
myself, and I intended and intend to employ myself in the like 
theological studies, and in the concerns of my own parish and 
in practical works. 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 211 

" With the same view of personal improvement I was led 
more seriously to a design which had been long on my mind. 
For many years, at least thirteen, I have wished to give my- 
self to a life of greater religious regularity than I have hith- 
erto led ; but it is very unpleasant to confess such a wish even 
to my Bishop, because it seems arrogant, and because it is 
committing me to a profession which may come to nothing. 
For what have I done that I am to be called to account by 
the world for my private actions, in a way in which no one 
else is called ? Why may I not have that liberty which all 
others are allowed ? I am often accused of being underhand 
and uncandid in respect to the intentions to which I have been 
alluding : but no one likes his own good resolutions noised 
about, both from mere common delicacy and from fear lest he 
should not be able to fulfil them. I feel it very cruel, though 
the parties in fault do not know what they are doing, that 
very sacred matters between me and my conscience are made 
a matter of public talk. May I take a case parallel though 
different ? suppose a person in prospect of marriage ; would 
he like the subject discussed in newspapers, and parties, cir- 
cumstances, &c., &c., publicly demanded of him, at the pen- 
alty of being accused of craft and duplicity ? 

" The resolution I speak of has been taken with reference 
to myself alone, and has been contemplated quite independent 
of the cooperation of any other human being, and without 
reference to success or failure other than personal, and with- 
out regard to the blanae or approbation of man. And being 
a resolution of years, and one to which I feel God has called 
me,' and in which I am violating no rule of the Church any 
more than if I married, I should have to answer for it, if I 
did not pursue it, as a good Providence made openings for it. 
In pursuing it then I am thinking of myself alone, not aiming 
at any ecclesiastical or external effects. At the same time of 
course it would be a great comfort to me to know that God 
had put it into the hearts of others to pursue their personal 
edification in the same way, and unnatural not to wish to have 



212 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

the benefit of their presence and encouragement, or not to 
think it a great infringement on the rights of conscience if 
such personal and private resolutions were interfered with. 
Your Lordship will allovf me to add my firm conviction that 
such religious resolutions are most necessary for keeping a 
certain class of minds firm in their allegiance to our Church ; 
but still I can as truly say that my own reason for any thing 
I have done has been a personal one, without which I should 
not have entered upon it, and which I hope to pursue whether 
with or without the sympathies of others pursuing a similar 



" As to my intentions, I purpose to live there myself a 
good deal, as I have a resident curate in Oxford. In doing 
this, I believe I am consulting for the good of my parish, as 
my population at Littlemore is at least equal to that of St. 
Mary's in Oxford, and the whole of Littlemore is double of it. 
It has been very much neglected ; and in providing a parson- 
age-house at Littlemore, as this will be, and will be called, I 
conceive I am doing a very great benefit to my people. At 
the same time it has appeared to me that a partial or tempo- 
rary retirement from St. Mary's Church might be expedient 
under the prevailing excitement. 

" As to the quotation from the [newspaper] which I have 
not seen, your Lordship will perceive from what I have said, 
that no ' monastery is in • process of erection ; ' there is no 
' chapel ; ' no ' refectory,' hardly a dining-room or parlour. 
The ' cloisters ' are my shed connecting the cottages. I do 
not understand what ' cells of dormitories ' means. Of course 
I can repeat your Lordship's words that ' I am not attempting 
a revival of the Monastic Orders, in any thing approaching 
to the Romanist sense of the term,' or ' taking on myself to 
originate any measure of importance without authority from 
the Heads of the Church.' I am attempting nothing eccle- 
siastical, but something personal and private, and which can 
only be made public, not private, by newspapers and letter- 
writers, in which sense the most sacred and conscientious re- 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 213 

solves and acts may certainly be made the objects of an un- 
mannerly and unfeeling curiosity." 

One calumny there was which the Bishop did not believe, 
and of which of course he had no idea of speaking. It was 
that I was actually in the service of the enemy. I had been 
already received into the Catholic Church, and was rearing at 
Littlemore a nest of Papists, who, like me, were to take the 
Anglican oaths which they did not believe, and for which they 
got dispensation from Rome, and thus in due time were to 
bring over to that unprincipled Church great numbers of the 
Anglican Clergy and Laity. Bishops gave their countenance 
to this imputation against me. The case was simply this : — 
as I made Littlemore a place of retirement for myself, so did 
I offer it to others. There were young men in Oxford, whose 
testimonials for Orders had been refused by their colleges ; 
there were young clergymen, who had found themselves una- 
ble from conscience to go on with thir duties, and had thrown 
up their parochial engagements. Such men were ah-eady go- 
ing straight to Rome, and I interposed ; I interposed for the 
reasons I have given in the beginning of this portion of my 
narrative. I interposed from fidelity to my clerical engage- 
ments, and from duty to my Bishop ; and from the interest 
which I was bound to take in them, and from belief that they 
were premature or excited. Their friends besought me to 
quiet them, if I could. Some of them came to live with me at 
Littlemore. They were laymen, or in the place of laymen. I 
kept some of them back for several years from being received 
into the Catholic Church. Even when I had given up my liv- 
ing, I was still bound by my duty to their parents or friends, 
and I did not forget still to do what I could for them. The 
immediate occasion of my resigning St. Mary's, was the unex- 
pected conversion of one of them. Alter that, I felt it was im- 
possible to keep my post there, for I had been unable to keep 
my word with my Bishop. 

The following letters refer, more or less, to these men, 
whether they were with me at Littlemore or not : — 



214 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPIOTONS. 

1. 1843 or 1844. "I did not explain to you sufficiently 
the state of mind of those who were in danger. I only spoke 
of those who were convinced that our Church was external to 
the Church Catholic, though they felt it unsafe to trust their 
own private convictions ; but there are two other states of 
mind ; 1. that of those who are unconsciously near Rome, and 
whose despair about our Church would at once develop into a 
state of conscious approximation, or a quasi-TQBobiiiou to go 
over ; 2. those who feel they can with a safe conscience re- 
main with us while they are allowed to testify in behalf of Ca- 
tholicism, i. e. as if by such acts they were putting our Church, 
or at least that portion of it in which they were included, in 
the position of catechumens." 

2. " July 16, 1843. I assure you that I feel, with only too 
much sympathy, what you say. You need not be told that the 
whole subject of our position is a subject of anxiety to others 
beside yourself. It is no good attempting to offer advice, 
when perhaps I might raise difficulties instead of removing 
them. It seems to me quite a case, in which you should, as 
far as may be, make up your mind for yourself. Come to 
Littlemore by all means. We shall all rejoice in your compa- 
ny ; and, if quiet and retirement are able, as they very likely 
will be, to reconcile you to things as they are, you shall have 
your fill of them. How distressed poor Henry Wilberforce 
must be ! Knowing how he values you, I feel for him ; but, 
alas ! he has his own position, and every one else has his own, 
and the misery is that no two of us have exactly the same. 

" It is very kind of you to be so frank and open with me, 
as you are ; but this is a time which throws together persons 
who feel alike. May I without taking a liberty sign myself, 
yours affectionately, &c. ? " 

3. " 1845. I am concerned to find you speak of me in a 
tone of distrust. If you knew me ever so little, instead of 
hearing of me from persons who do not know me at all, you 
would think differently of me, whatever you thought of my 
opinions. Two years since, I got your son to tell you my 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 215 

mtention of resigning St. Mary's before I made it public, 
thinking you ought to know it. When you expressed some 
painful feeling upon it, I told him I could not consent to his 
remaining here, painful as it would be to me to part with him, 
without your written sanction. And this you did me the 
favour to give. 

" I believe you will find that it has been merely a delicacy 
on your son's part, which has delayed his speaking to you 
about me for two months past ; a delicacy, lest he should say 
either too much or too little about me. I have urged him 
several times to speak to you. 

" Nothing can be done after your letter, but to recommend 
him to go to A. B. (his home) at once. I am very sorry to 
part with him." 

4. The following letter is addressed to a Catholic Prelate, 
who accused me of coldness in my conduct towards him : — 

" April 16, 1845. I was at that time in charge of a minis- 
terial ofiice in the English Church, with persons entrusted to 
me, and a Bishop to obey ; how could I possibly write otherwise 
than I did without violating sacred obligations and betraying 
momentous interests which were upon me? I felt that my 
immediate, undeniable duty, clear if any thing was clear, was 
to fulfil that trust. It might be right indeed to give it up, that 
was another thing ; but it never could be right to hold it, and 

to act as if I did not hold it If you knew me, you 

would acquit me, I think, of having ever felt towards your 
Lordship an unfriendly spirit, or ever having had a shadow on 
my mind (as far as I dare witness about myself) of what might 
be called controversial rivalry or desire of getting the better, 
or fear lest the world should think I had got the worst, or 
irritation of any kind. You are too kind indeed to imply this, 
and yet your words lead me to say it. And now in like man- 
ner, pray believe, though I cannot explain it to you, that I am 
encompassed with responsibilities, so great and so various, as 
utterly to overcome me, unless I have mercy from Him, who 
all through my life has sustained and guided me, and to whom 



216 HISTOEY OF MY EELiaiOTJS OPINIONS. 

I can now submit myself, though men of all parties are think- 
ing evil of me." 

6. " August 30, 1843. A. B. has suddenly conformed to 
the Church of Rome. He was away for three weeks. I sup- 
pose I must say in my defence, that he promised me distinctly 
to remain in our Church three years, before I received him 
here." 

Such fidelity, however, was taken w malam partem by the 
high Anglican authorities ; they thought it insidious. I happen 
still to have a correspondence, in which the chief place is filled 
by one of the most eminent Bishops of the day, a theologian 
and reader of the Fathers, a moderate man, who at one time 
was talked of as likely to have the reversion of the Primacy. 
A young clergyman in his diocese became a Catholic ; the 
papers at once reported on authority from " a very high quar- 
ter," that, after his reception, "the Oxford men had been 
recommending him to retain »his living." I had reasons for 
thinking that the allusion was to me, and I authorized the 
Editor of a Paper, who had inquired of me on the point, to 
" give it, as far as I was concerned, an unqualified contradic- 
tion ; " — when from a motive of delicacy he hesitated, I added 
"my direct and indignant contradiction." "Whoever is the 
author of it, no correspondence or intercourse of any kind, 
direct or indirect, has passed," I continued to the Editor, 
" between Mr. S. and myself, since his conforming to the 
Church of Rome, except my formally and merely acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of his letter, in which he informed me of the 
fact, without, as far as I recollect, my expressing any opinion 
upon it. You may state this as broadly as I have set it down." 
My denial was told to the Bishop ; what took place upon it is 
given in a letter from which I copy. " My father showed the 
letter to the Bishop, who, as he laid it down, said, ' Ah, those 
Oxford men are not ingenuous.' ' How do you mean ? ' asked 
my father. ' Why,' said the Bishop, ' they advised Mr. B. S. 
to retain his living after he turned Catholic. I know that to 
be a fact, because A. B. told me so.' " " The Bishop," con- 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 21Y 

tinues the letter, " who is perhaps the most influential man in 
reality on the bench, evidently believes it to be the truth." Dr. 
Pusey too wrote for me to the Bishop ; and the Bishop instant- 
ly beat a retreat. " I have the honour," he says in the auto- 
graph which I transcribe, " to acknowledge the receipt of your 
note, and to say in reply that it has not been stated by me 
(though such a statement has, I believe, appeared in some of 
the Public Prints) that Mr. Newman had advised Mr. B. S. 
to retain his living, after he had forsaken our Church. But 
it has been stated to me, that Mr. Newman was in close cor- 
respondence with Mr. B. S., and, being fully aware of his state 
of opinions and feelings, yet advised him to continue in our 
communion. Allow me to add," he says to Dr. Pusey, " that 
neither your name, nor that of Mr. Keble, was mentioned to 
me in connexion with that of Mr. B. S." 

I was not going to let the Bishop off on this evasion, so I 
wrote to him myself. After quoting his Letter to Dr. Pusey, I 
continued, " I beg to trouble your Lordship with my own ac- 
count of the two allegations " [^dose correspondence and fully 
aware, &c.] " which are contained in your statement, and 
which have led to your speaking of me in terms which I hope 
never to deserve. 1. Since Mr. B. S. has been in your Lord- 
ship's diocese, I have seen him in common rooms or private 
parties in Oxford two or three times, when I never (as far as 
I can recollect) had any conversation with him. During the 
same time I have, to the best of my memory, written to him 
three letters. One was lately, in acknowledgment of his in- 
forming me of his change of religion. Another was last sum- 
mer, when I asked him (to no purpose) to come and stay with 
me in this place. The earliest of the three letters was written 
just a year since, as far as I recollect, and it certainly was on 
the subject of his joining the Church of Rome. I wrote this 
letter at the earnest wish of a friend of his. I cannot be sure 
that, on his replying, I did not send him a brief note in expla- 
nation of points in my letter which he had misapprehended. I 
cannot recollect any other correspondence between us. 
10 



218 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

"2. As to my knowledge of his opinions and feelings, as 
far as I remember, the only point of perplexity which I knew, 
the only point which to this honr I know, as pressing upon 
him, was that of the Pope's supremacy. He professed to be 
searching Antiquity whether the see of Rome had formally 
that relation to the whole Church which Roman Catholics now 
assign to it. My letter was directed to the point, that it was 
his duty not to perplex himself with arguments on [such] a 
question, . . . and to put it altogether aside. ... It is hard 
that I am put upon my memory, without knowing the details 
of the statement made against me, considering the various cor- 
respondence in which I am from time to time unavoidably 
engaged. ... Be assured, my Lord, that there are very definite 
limits, beyond which persons like me would never urge another 
to retain preferment in the English Church, nor would retain it 
themselves ; and / that the censure which has been directed 
against them by so many of its Rulers has a very grave bear- 
ing upon those limits." The Bishop replied in a civil letter, 
and sent my own letter to his original informant, who wrote to 
me the letter of a gentleman. It seems that an anxious lady 
had said something or other which had been misinterpreted, 
against her real meaning, into the calumny which was circu- 
lated, and so the report vanished into thin air. I closed the 
correspondence with the following Letter to the Bishop : — 

" I hope your Lordship will believe me when I say, that 
statements about me, equally incorrect with that which has 
come to your Lordship's ears, are from time to time reported 
to me as credited and repeated by the highest authorities in 
our Church, though it is very seldom that I have the opportunity 
of denying them. I am obliged by your Lordship's letter to 
Dr. Pusey as giving me such an opportunity." Then I added, 
with a purpose, "Your Lordship will observe that in my 
Letter I had no occasion to proceed to the question, whether a 
person holding Roman Catholic opinions can in honesty remain 
in our Church. Lest then any misconception should arise 
from my silence, I here take the liberty of adding, that I see 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 219 

nothing wrong in such a person's continuing in communion 
with us, provided he holds no preferment or office, abstains 
from the management of ecclesiastical matters, and is bound 
by no subscription or oath to our doctrines." 

This was written on March 7, 1843, and was in anticipa- 
tion of my own retirement into lay communion. This again 
leads me to a remark ; for two years I was in lay communion, 
not indeed being a Catholic in my convictions, but in a state of 
serious doubt, and with the probable prospect of becoming 
some day, what as yet I was not. Under these circumstances 
I thought the best thing I could do was to give up duty and to 
throw myself into lay communion, remaining an Anglican. I 
could not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devo- 
tions she sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I 
did not give up my fellowship, for I could not be sure that my 
doubts would not be reduced or overcome, however unlikely I 
thought such an event. But I gave up my living ; and, for 
two years before my conversion, I took no clerical duty. My 
last Sermon was in September, 1843 ; then I remained at 
Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was made a subject 
of reproach to me at the time, and is at this day, that I did not 
leave the AngKcan Church sooner. To me this seems a won- 
derful charge ; why, even had I been quite sure that Rome was 
the true Church, the Anglican Bishops would have had no 
just subject of complaint against me, provided I took no 
Anglican oath, no clerical duty, no ecclesiastical administra- 
tion. Do they force all men who go to their Churches to believe 
in the 39 Articles, or to join in the Athanasian Creed? How- 
ever, I was to have other measure dealt to me ; great author- 
ities ruled it so ; and a learned controversialist in the North 
thought it a shame that I did not leave the Church of England 
as much as ten years sooner than I did. His nephew, an 
Anglican clergyman, kindly wished to undeceive him on this 
point. So, in 1850, after some correspondence, I wrote the 
following letter, which will be of service to this narrative, from 
its chronological character : — 



220 HISTOET OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 

"Dec. 6, 1849. Your uncle says, 'If he (Mr. N.) wiU 
declare, sans phrase, as the French say, that I have laboured 
under an entire mistake, and that he was not a concealed 
Romanist during the ten years in question ' (I suppose, the 
last ten years of my membership with the Anglican Church) , 
' or during any part of the time, my controversial antipathy 
will be at end, and I will readily express to him that I am 
truly sorry that I have made such a mistake.' 

" So candid an avowal is what I should have expected 
from a mind like your uncle's. I am extremely glad he has 
brought it to this issue. 

"By a 'concealed Romanist' I understand him to mean 
one, who, professing to belong to the Church of England, in 
his heart and will intends to benefit the Church of Rome at the 
expense of the Church of England. He cannot mean by the 
expression merely a person who in fact is benefiting the Church 
of Rome, while he is intending to benefit the Church of Eng- 
land, for that is no discredit to him morally, and he (your 
uncle) evidently means to impute blame. 

" In the sense in which I have explained the words, I' can 
simply and honestly say that I was not a concealed Romanist 
during the whole, or any part of, the years in question. 

" For the first four years of the ten (up to Michaelmas, 
1839) I honestly wished to benefit the Church of England, at 
the expense of the Church of Rome : 

" For the second four years I wished to benefit the Church 
of England without prejudice to the Church of Rome : 

" At the beginning of the ninth year (Michaelmas, 1843) 
I began to despair of the Church of England, and gave up all 
clerical duty ; and then, what I wrote and did was influenced 
by a mere wish not to injure it, and not by the wish to benefit 
it: 

" At the beginning of the tenth year I distinctly contem- 
plated leaving it, but I also distinctly told my friends that it was 
in my contemplation. 

" Lastly, during the last half of that tenth year I was en- 



HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 221 

gaged in writing a book (Essay on Development) in favour of 
the Roman Churela, and indirectly against the English ; but 
even then, till it was finished, I had not absolutely intended to 
publish it, wishing to reserve to myself the chance of changing 
miy mind when the argumentative views which were actuating 
me had been distinctly brought out before me in writing. 

" I wish this statement, which I make from memory, and 
without consulting any document, severely tested by my 
writings and doings, as I am confident it will, on the whole, 
be borne out, whatever real or apparent exceptions (I suspect 
none) have to be allowed by me in detail. 

" Your uncle is at liberty to make what use he pleases of 
this explanation." 

I have now reached an important date in my narrative, the 
year 1843, but before proceeding to the matters which it con- 
tains, I will insert portions of my letters from 1841 to 1843, 
addressed to Catholic acquaintances. 

1. "Aprils, 1841 The unity of the Church Catholic 

is very near my heart, only I do not see any prospect of it in 
our time ; and I despair of its being effected without great 
sacrifices on all hands. As to resisting the Bishop's will, I 
observe that no point of doctrine or principle was in dispute, 
but a course of action, the publication of certain works. I do 
not think you sufiaciently understood our position. I suppose 
you would obey the Holy See in such a case ; now, when we 
were separated from the Pope, his authority reverted to our 
Diocesans. Our Bishop is our Pope. It is our theory, that 
each diocese is an integral Church, intercommunion being a 
duty (and the breach of it a sin) , but not essential to Catho- 
licity. To have resisted my Bishop, would have been to place 
myself in an utterly false position, which I never could have 
recovered. Depend upon it, the strength of any party lies in 
its being true to its theory. Consistency is the life of a move- 
ment. 

" I have no misgivings whatever that the line I have taken 
can be other than a prosperous one ; that is, in itself, for of 



222 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

course Providence may refuse to us its legitimate issues for our 
sins. 

" I am afraid that in one respect you may be disappointed. 
It is my trust, though I must not be too sanguine, that we shall 
not have individual members of our communion going over to 
yours. What one's duty would be under other circumstances, 
what our duty ten or twenty years ago, I cannot say ; but I do 
think that there is less of private judgment in going with one's 
Church, than in leaving it. I can earnestly desire a union be- 
tween my Church and yours. I cannot listen to the thought 
of your being joined by individuals among us." 

2. "April 26, 1841. My only anxiety is lest your branch 
of the Church should not meet us by those reforms which 
surely are necessary. It never could be, that so large a portion 
of Christendom should have split off from the communion of 
Rome, and kept up a protest for 300 years for nothing. I 
think I never shall believe that so much piety and earnestness 
would be found among Protestants, if there were not some very 
grave errors on the side of Rome. To suppose the contrary is 
most unreal, and violates all one's notions of moral probabili- 
ties. All aberrations are founded on, and have their life in, 
some truth or other — and Protestantism, so widely spread and 
so long enduring, must have in it, and must be witness for, a 
great truth or much truth. That I am an advocate for Prot- 
estantism, you cannot suppose — but I am forced into a Via 
Media, short of Rome, as it is at present." 

3. " May 5, 1841. While I most sincerely hold that there 
is in the Roman Church a traditionary system which is not ne- 
cessarily connected with her essential formularies, yet, were I 
ever so much to change my mind on this point, this would not 
tend to bring me from my present position, providentially ap- 
pointed in the English Church. That your communion was 
unassailable, would not prove that mine was indefensible. Nor 
would it at all affect the sense in which I receive our Articles ; 
they would still speak against certain definite errors, though 
you had reformed them. 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPHHONS. 223 

" I say this lest any lurking suspicion should be left in the 
mind of your friends that persons who think with me are likely, 
by the growth of their present views, to find it imperative on 
them to pass over to your communion. Allow me to state 
strongly, that if you have any such thoughts, and proceed to 
act upon them, your friends will be committing a fatal mis- 
take. We have (I trust) the principle and temper of obe- 
dience too intimately wrought into us to allow of our separat- 
ing ourselves from our ecclesiastical superiors because in many 
points we may sympathize with others. We have too great a 
horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so 
immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to 
another. We may be cast out of our communion, or it may 
decree heresy to be truth, — you shall say whether such contin- 
gencies are likely ; but I do not see other conceivable causes of 
our leaving the Church in which we were baptized. 

" For myself, persons must be well acquainted with what I 
have written before they venture to say whether I have much 
changed my main opinions and cardinal views in the course of 
the last eight years. That my sympathies have grown towards 
the religion of Rome I do not deny ; that my reasons for shun- 
ning her communion have lessened or altered it would be difii- 
cult perhaps to prove. And I wish to go by reason, not by 
feeling." 

4. " June 18, 1841. You urge persons whose views agree 
with rbine to commence a movement in behalf of a union be- 
tween the Churches. Now in the letters I have written, I 
have uniformly said that I did not expect that union in our 
time, and have discouraged the notion of all sudden proceed- 
ings with a view to it. I must ask your leave to repeat on 
this occasion most distinctly, that I cannot be party to any 
agitation, but mean to remain quiet in my own place, and to do 
all I can to make others take the same course. This I con- 
ceive to be my simple duty ; but, over and above this, I will 
not set my teeth on edge with sour grapes. I know it is quite 
within the range of possibilities that one or another of our 



224 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

people should go over to your communion ; however, it would 
be a greater misfortune to you than grief to us. If your 
friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let them 
make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ventured to 
say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman 
Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations 
for the union of the Churches : when you now urge us to peti- 
tion our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very like an 
act of negotiation." 

5. I have the first sketch or draft of a letter, which I wrote 
to a zealous Catholic layman : it runs as follows, as I have 
preserved it: — September 12, 1841. "It would rejoice all 
Catholic minds among us, more than words can say, if you 
could persuade members of the Church of Rome to take the 
line in politics which you so earnestly advocate. Suspicion 
and distrust are the main causes at present of the separation 
between us, and the nearest approaches in doctrine will but in- 
crease the hostility, which, alas ! our people feel towards yours, 
while these causes continue. Depend upon it, you must not 
rely upon our Catholic tendencies till they are removed. I am 
not speaking of myself, or of any friends of mine ; but of our 
Church generally. Whatever our personal feelings may be, 
we shall but tend to raise and spread a rival Church to yours 
in the four quarters of the world, unless you do what none but 
you can do. Sympathies, which would flow over to the Church 
of Rome, as a matter of course, did she admit them, will but 
be developed in the consolidation of our own system, if she 
continues to be the object of our suspicions and fears. I wish, 
of course I do, that our own Church may be built up and ex- 
tended, but stiQ, not at the cost of the Church of Rome, not in 
opposition to it. I am sure, that, while you suffer, we suffer 
too jfrom the separation ; hut we cannot remove the obstacles ; it 
is with you to do so. You do not fear us ; we fear you. Till 
we cease to fear you, we cannot love you. 

"While you are in your present position, the friends of 
Catholic unity in our Church are but fulfilling the prediction 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 225 

of those of jour body who are averse to them, viz., that they 
w^ill be merely strengthening a rival communion to yours. 
Many of you say that we are your greatest enemies ; we have said 
so ourselves : so we are, so we shall be, as things stand at 
present. We are keeping people from you, by supplying their 
wants in our own Church. We are keeping persons from you : 
do you wish us to keep them from you for a time or forever ? 
It rests with you to determine. I do not fear that you will 
succeed among us ; you will not supplant our Church in the 
affections of the English nation ; only through the English 
Church can you act upon the English nation. I wish of course 
our Church should be consolidated, with and through and in 
your communion, for its sake, and your sake, and for the sake 
of unity. 

" Are you aware that the more serious thinkers among us 
are used, as far as they dare form an opinion, to regard the 
spirit of Liberalism as the characteristic of the destined Anti- 
christ ? In vain does any one clear the Church of Rome from 
the badges of Antichrist, in which Protestants would invest 
her, if she deliberately takes up her position in the very quar- 
ter, whither we have cast them, when we took them off from 
her. Antichrist is described as the dvojiog, as exalting himself 
above the yoke of religion and law. The spirit of lawlessness 
came in with the Reformation, and Liberalism is its offspring. 

" And now I fear I am going to pain you by telling you, 
that you consider the approaches in doctrine on our part tow- 
ards you, closer than they really are. I cannot help repeat- 
ing what I have many times said in print, that your services 
and devotions to St. Mary in matter of fact do most deeply 
pain me. I am only stating it as a fact. 

" Again, I have nowhere said that I can accept the decrees 
of Trent throughout, nor implied it. The doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation is a great difficulty with me, as being, as I think, 
not primitive. Nor have I said that our Articles in all re- 
spects admit of a Roman interpretation ; the very word ' Tran- 
substantiation ' is disowned in them. 
10* 



226 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

" Thus, you see, it is not merely on grounds of expedience 
that we do not join you. There are positive difficulties in the 
way of it. And, even if there were not, we shall have no 
divine warrant for doing so, while we think that the Church 
of England is a branch of the true Church, and that intercom- 
munion with the rest of Christendom is necessary, not for the 
life of a particular Church, but for its health only. I have 
never disguised that there are actual circumstances in the 
Church of Rome which pain me much ; of the removal of 
these I see no chance, while we join you one by one ; but if 
our Church were prepared for a union, she might make her 
terms ; she might gain the Cup ; she might protest against the 
extreme honours paid to St. Mary ; she might make some ex- 
planation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. I am not pre- 
pared to say that a reform in other branches of the Roman 
Church would be necessary for our uniting with them, how- 
ever desirable in itself, so that we were allowed to make a re- 
form in our own country. We do not look towards Rome as 
believing that its communion is infallible, but that union is a 
duty." 

The following letter was occasioned by the present of a 
book, from a friend to whom it is written ; more will be said 
on the subject of it presently : — 

" Nov. 22, 1842. I only wish that your Church were 
more known among us by such writings. You will not in- 
terest us in her, till we see her, not in politics, but in her true 
functions of exhorting, teaching, and guiding. I wish there 
were a chance of making the leading men among you under- 
stand, what I believe is no novel thought to yourself. It is 
not by learned discussions, or acute arguments, or reports of 
miracles, that the heart of England can be gained. It is by 
men ' approving themselves,' like the Apostle, ' ministers of 
Christ.' 

"As to your question, whether the Volume you have sent 
is not calculated to remove my apprehensions that another gos- 
pel is substituted for the true one in your practical instructions, 



HISTOBY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 227 

before I can answer it in any way, I ought to know how far 
the Sermons which it comprises are selected from a number, or 
whether they are the whole, or suth as the whole, which have 
been published of the author's. I assure you, or at least I 
trust, that if it is ever clearly brought home to me that I have 
been wrong in what I have said on this subject, my public 
avowal of that conviction will only be a question of time with 
me. 

"If, however, you saw our Church as we see it, you 
would easily understand that such a change of feeling, did it 
take place, would have no necessary tendency, which you seem 
to expect, to draw a person from the Church of England to 
that of Rome. There is a divine life among us, clearly mani- 
fested, in spite of all our disorders, which is as great a note of 
the Church as any can be. Why should we seek our Lord's 
presence elsewhere, when He vouchsafes it to us where we are ? 
"What call have we to change our communion ? 

" Roman Catholics will find this to be the state of things 
in time to come, whatever promise they may fancy there is of 
a large secession to their Church. This man or that may 
leave us, but there will be no general movement. There is, 
indeed, an incipient movement of our Church towards yours, 
and this your leading men are doing all they can to frustrate 
by their unwearied efforts at all risks to carry off individuals. 
When will they know their position, and embrace a larger and 
wiser policy ? " 



The last letter, which I have inserted, is addressed to my 
dear friend, Dr. Russell, the present President of Maynooth. 
He had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion than any 
one else. He called upon me, in passing through Oxford in 
the summer of 1841, and I think I took him over some of the 
buildings of the University. He called again another summer, 
on his way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he 



228 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion. He 
sent me at different times several letters ; he was always 
gentle, mild, unobtrusive, uncontroversial. He let me alone. 
He also gave me one or two books. Veron's Rule of Faith 
and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one ; a volume 
of St. Alfonso Liguori's Sermons was another ; and to that 
the letter which I have last inserted relates. 

Now it must be observed that the writings of St. Alfonso, 
as I knew them by the extracts commonly made from them, 
prejudiced me as much against the Roman Church as any 
thing else, on account of what was called their " Mariolatry ; '* 
but there was nothing of the kind in this book. I wrote to 
ask Dr. Russell whether any thing had been left out in the 
translation ; he answered that there certainly was an omission 
of one passage about the Blessed Virgin. This omission, in 
the case of a book intended for Catholics, at least showed that 
such passages as are found in the works of Italian Authors 
were not acceptable to every part of the Catholic world. Such 
devotional manifestations in honour of our Lady had been my 
great crux as regards Catholicism ; I say frankly, I do not 
fully enter into them now ; I trust I do not love her the less, 
because I cannot enter into them. They may be fully ex- 
plained and defended ; but sentiment and taste do not run With 
logic : they are suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable for 
England. But, over and above England, my own case was 
special ; from a boy I had been led to consider that my Maker 
and I, His creature, were the two beings, certainly such, in 
rerum naturd, I will not here speculate, however, about my 
own feelings. Only this I know full well now, and did not 
know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any 
sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no 
sacrament, no Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to 
come between the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, 
" solus cum solo," in all matters between man and his God. 
He alone creates ; He alone has redeemed ; before His awful 
eyes we go in death ; in the vision of Him is our eternal beati- 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 229 

tude. " Solus cum solo : " — I recollect but indistinctly the 
effect produced upon me by this Volume, but it must have 
been considerable. At all events I had got a key to a diffi- 
culty ; in these sermons (or rather heads of sermons, as they 
seem to be, taken down by a hearer) there is much of what 
would be called legendary illustration ; but the substance of 
them is plain, practical, awful preaching upon the great truths 
of salvation. What I can speak of with greater confidence is 
the effect upon me a little later of the Exercises of St. Igna- 
tius. Here, again, in a pure matter of the most direct religion, 
in the intercourse between God and the soul, during a season 
of recollection, of repentance, of good resolution, of inquiry 
into vocation, the soul was " sola cum solo ; " there was no 
cloud interposed between the creature and the Object of his 
faith and love. The command practically enforced was, " My 
son, give Me thy heart." The devotions then to angels and 
saints as little interfered with the incommunicable glory of the 
Eternal, as the love which we bear our friends and relations, 
our tender human sympathies, are inconsistent with that 
supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen, which really does 
but sanctify and exalt what is of earth. At a later date Dr. 
Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or half-penny books 
of devotion, of all sorts, as they are found in the booksellers' 
shops at Rome ; and on looking them over, I was quite aston- 
ished to find how different they were from what I had fancied, 
how little there was ii;i them to which I could really object. I 
have given an account of them in my Essay on the Develop- 
ment of Doctrine. Dr. Russell sent me St. Alfonso's book at 
the end of 1842 ; however, it was still a long time before I 
got over my difficulty, on the score of the devotions paid to 
the Saints ; perhaps, as I judge, from a letter I have turned 
up, it was some way into 1844, before I could be said to have 
got over it. 

I am not sure that another consideration did not also 
weigh with mo then. The idea of the Blessed Virgin was as 
it were magnified in the Church of Rome, as time went on,— 



230 HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

but SO were all the Christian ideas ; as that of the Blessed 
Eucharist. The whole scene of pale, faint, distant Apostolic 
Christianity is seen in Rome, as through a telescope or mag- 
nifier. The harmony of the whole, however, is of course 
what it was. It is unfair then to take one Roman idea, 
that of the Blessed Virgin, out of what may be called its 
context. 

Thus I am brought to the principle of development of doc- 
trine in the Christian Church, to which I gave my mind at the 
end of 1842. I had spoken of it in the passage, which I 
quoted many pages back, in Home Thoughts Abroad, pub- 
lished in 1836 ; but it had been a favourite subject with me, 
all along. And it is certainly recognized in that celebrated 
Treatise of Vincent of Lerins, which has so often been taken 
as the basis of the Anglican theory. In 1843, I began to con- 
sider it steadily ; and the general view to which I came is 
stated thus in a letter to a friend of the date of July 14, 1844 ; 
it will be observed that, now as before, my issue is still Faith 
versus Church : — 

" The kind of considerations which weigh with me are 
such as the following: — 1. I am far more certain (according 
to the Fathers) that we are in a state of culpable separation, 
than that developments do not exist under the Gospel, and that 
the Roman developments are not the true ones. 2. I am far 
more certain, that our (modern) doctrines are wrong, than 
that the Roman (modern) doctrines are wrong. 3. Granting 
that the Roman (special) doctrines are not found drawn out 
in the early Church, yet I think there is sufficient trace of them 
in it, to recommend and prove them, on the hypothesis of the 
Church having a divine guidance, though not sufficient to prove 
them by itself. So that the question simply turns on the na- 
ture of the promise of the Spirit, made to the Church. 4. 
The proof of the Roman (modern) doctrine is as strong (or 
stronger) in Antiquity, as that of certain doctrines which both 
we and Romans hold : e. g. there is more of evidence in An- 
tiquity for the necessity of Unity, than for the Apostolical 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 231 

Succession ; for the Supremacy of the See of Rome, than for 
the Presence in the Eucharist ; for the practice of Invocation, 
than for certain books in the present Canon of Scripture, &c., 
&c. 5. The analogy of the Old Testament, and also of the 
New, leads to the acknowledgment of doctrinal develop- 
ments." 

And thus I was led on to a further consideration. I saw 
that the principle of development not only accounted for cer- 
tain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philosophical phe- 
nomenon, giving a character to the whole course of Christian 
thought. It was discernible from the first years of the Catho- 
lic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching 
a unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which 
the Anglican could not exhibit, that modern Rome was 
in truth ancient Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, 
just as a mathematical curve has its own law and ex- 
pression. 

And thus again I was led on to examine more attentively 
what I doubt not was in my thoughts long before, viz., the 
concatenation of argument by which the mind ascends from its 
first to its final religious idea ; and I came to the conclusion 
that there was no medium, in true philosophy, between Athe- 
ism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent mind, 
under those circumstances in which it finds itself here below, 
must embrace either the one or the other. And I hold this 
still : I am a Catholic by virtue of my believing in a God ; 
and if I am asked why I believe in a God, I answer that it is 
Tiecause I believe in myself, for I feel it impossible to believe 
in my own existence (and of that fact I am quite sure) with- 
out believing also in the existence of Him, who lives as a Per- 
sonal, All-seeing, All-judging Being in my conscience. Now, 
I dare say, I have not expressed myself with philosophical 
correctness, because I have not given myself to the study of 
what others have said on the subject ; but I think I have a 
strong true meaning in what I say which will stand exam- 
ination. . 



232 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Moreover, I came to the conclusion which I have been 
stating, on reasoning of the same nature, as that which I had 
adopted on the subject of development of doctrine. The fact 
of the operation from first to last of that principle of develop- 
ment is an argument in favour of the identity of Roman and 
Primitive Christianity ; but as there is a law which acts upon 
the subject-matter of dogmatic theology, so is there a law in 
the matter of religious faith. In the third part of this narra- 
tive I spoke of certitude as the consequence, divinely intended 
and enjoined upon us, of the accumulative force of certain 
given reasons which, taken one by one, were only probabili- 
ties. Let it be recollected that I am historically relating my 
state of mind, at the period of my life which I am surveying. 
I am not speaking theologically, nor have I any intention of 
going into controversy, or of defending myself ; but speaking 
historically of what I held in 1843-'4, I say, that I believed 
in a God on a ground of probability, that I believed in Christi- 
anity on a probability, and that I believed in Catholicism on a 
probability, and that all three were about the same kind of 
probability, a cumulative, a transcendent probability, but still 
probability ; inasmuch as He who made us, has so willed that in 
mathematics indeed we arrive at certitude by rigid demonstra- 
tion, but in religious inquiry we arrive at certitude by accu- 
mulated probabilities, — inasmuch as He who has willed that 
we should so act, cooperates with us in our acting, and there- 
by bestows on us a certitude which rises higher than the logi- 
cal force of our conclusions. And thus I came to see clearly, 
and to have a satisfaction in seeing that, in being led on into 
the Church of Rome, I was proceeding, not by any secondary 
grounds of reason, or by controversial points in detail, but 
was protected and justified, even in the use of those secondary 
arguments, by a great and broad principle. But, let it be ob- 
served, that I am stating a matter of fact, not defending it ; 
and if any Catholic says in consequence that I have been con- 
verted in a wrong way, I cannot help that now. 

And now I have carried on the history of my opinions to 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 233 

their last point, before I became a Catholic. I find great diffi- 
culty in fixing dates precisely ; but it must have been some 
way into 1844, before I thought not only that the Anglican 
Church was certainly wrong, but that Rome was right. Then 
I had nothing more to learn on the subject. How " Samaria" 
faded away from my imagination I cannot tell, but it was 
gone. Now to go back to the time when this last stage of my 
inquiry was in its commencement, which, if I dare assign 
dates, was towards the end of 1842. 

In 1843, 1 took two very important and significant steps : — 
1. In February, I made a formal Retractation of all the hard 
things which I had said against the Church of Rome. 2. In 
September, I resigned the Living of St. Mary's, Littlemore 
inclusive : — I will speak of these two acts separately. 

1. The words, in which I made my Retractation, have 
given rise to much criticism. After quoting a number of pas- 
sages frofn my writings against the Church of Rome, which I 
withdrew, I ended thus : — " If you ask me how an individual 
could venture, not simply to hold, but to publish such views 
of a communion so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in 
Saints, I answer that I said to myself, ' I am not spealdng 
my own words, I am but following almost a consensus of the 
divines of my own Church. They have ever used the strong- 
est language against Rome, even the most able and learned of 
them. I wish to throw myself into their system. While I 
say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary 
for our position.' Yet I have reason to fear still, that such 
language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetu- 
ous temper, a hope of approving myself to persons I respect, 
and a wish to repel the charge of Romanism." 

These words have been, and are, cited again and again 
against me, as if a confession that, when in the AngHcan 
Church, I said things against Rome which I did not really be- 
lieve. 

For myself, I cannot understand how any impartial man 



234: HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIOITS. 

can so take them ; and I have explained them in print several 
times. I trust that by this time they have been sufficiently 
explained by what I have said in former portions of this nar- 
rative ; still I have a word or two to say about them, which I 
have not said before. I apologized in the lines in question for 
saying out charges against the Church of Kome which I fully 
believed to be true. What is wonderful in such an apology? 

There are many things a man may hold, which at the same 
time he may feel that he has no right to say publicly. The 
law recognizes this principle. In our own time, men have 
been imprisoned and fined for saying true things of a bad 
king. The maxim has been held that, " The greater the 
truth, the greater is the libel.'^ And so as to the judgment of 
society, a just indignation would be felt against a writer who 
brought forward wantonly the weaknesses of a great man, 
though the whole world knew that they existed. No one is 
at liberty to speak ill of another without a justifiable reason, 
even though he knows he is speaking truth, and tiie public 
knows it too. Therefore I could not speak ill against the 
Church of Rome, though I believed what I said, without a 
good reason. I did believe what I said ; but had I a good 
reason for saying it? I thought I had; viz., I said what I 
believed was simply necessary in the controversy, in order to 
defend ourselves ; I considered that the Anglican position 
could not be defended, without bringing charges against the 
Church of Rome. Is not this almost a truism? is it not what 
every one says, who speaks on the subject at all? does any 
serious man abuse the Church of Rome, for the sake of 
abusing her, or because it justifies his own religious position ? 
What is the meaning of the very word " Protestantism," but 
that there is a call to speak out ? This then is what I said ; 
" I know I spoke strongly against the Church of Rome ; but 
it was no mere abuse, for I had a serious reason for doing so." 

But, not only did I think such language necessary for my 
Church's religious position, but all the great Anglican divines 
had thought so before me. They had thought so, and they 



HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 236 

had acted accordingly. And therefore I said, with much pro- 
priety, that I had not done it simply out of my own head, but 
that I was following the track, or rather reproducing the teach- 
ing, of those who had preceded me. 

I was pleading guilty ; but pleading also that there were ex- 
tenuating circumstances in the case. We all know the story 
of the convict, who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. 
By doing so he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for 
which he was to hang ; but he said that his mother's indul- 
gence, when he was a boy, had a good deal to do with it. In 
like manner I had made a charge, and I had made it ex animo ; 
but I accused others of having led me into believing it and 
publishing it. 

But there was more than this meant in the words which I 
used : — first, I will freely confess, indeed I said it some pages 
back, that I was angry with the Anglican divines. I thouglit 
they had taken me in ; I had read the Fathers with their 
eyes ; I had sometimes trusted their quotations or their 
reasonings ; and from reliance on them, I had used words or 
made statements, which properly I ought rigidly to have ex- 
amined myself. I had exercised more faith than criticism in 
the matter. This did not imply any broad misstatements on 
my part, arising from reliance on their authority, but it im- 
plied carelessness in matters of detail. And this of course 
was a fault. 

But there was a far deeper reason for my saying what I 
said in this matter, on which I have not hitherto touched ; and 
it was this : — The most oppressive thought, in the whole pro- 
cess of my change of opinion, was the clear anticipation, veri- 
fied by the event, that it would issue in the triumph of Liberal- 
ism. Against the Anti-dogmatic principle I had thrown my 
whole mind ; yet now I was doing more than any one else 
could do, to promote it. I was one of those who had kept it 
at bay in Oxford for so many years ; and thus my very retire- 
ment was its triumph. The men who had driven me from 
Oxford were distinctly the Liberals ; it was they who had 



236 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOFS OPINIONS. 

opened the attack upon Tract 90, and it was they who would 
gain a second benefit, if I went on to retire from the Anglican 
Church. But this was not all. As I have already said, there 
are but two alternatives, the way to Rome, and the way to 
Atheism : Anglicanism is the halfway house on the one side, 
and Liberalism is the halfway house on the other. How many 
men were there, as I knew full well, who would not follow me now 
in my advance from Anglicanism to Rome, but would at once 
leave Anglicanism and me for the Liberal camp. It is not at 
all easy (humanly speaking) to wind up an Englishman to a 
dogmatic level. I had done so in a good measure, in the case 
both of young men and of laymen, the Anglican Via Media 
being the representative of the dogma. The dogmatic and 
the Anglican principle were one, as I had taught them ; but I 
was breaking the Via Media to pieces, and would not dogmatic 
faith altogether be broken up, in the minds of a great number, 
by the demolition of the Via Media ? Oh ! how unhappy 
this made me ! I heard once from an eye-witness the account 
of a poor sailor whose legs were shattered by a ball, in the 
action off Algiers in 1816, and who was taken below for an 
operation. The surgeon and the chaplain persuaded him to 
have a leg off ; it was done and the tourniquet applied to the 
wound. Then, they broke it to him that he must have the 
other off too. The poor fellow said, " You should have told 
me that, gentlemen," and deliberately unscrewed the instru- 
ment and bled to death. Would not that be the case with 
many friends of my own. How could I ever hope to make 
them believe in a second theology, when I had cheated them 
in the first ? with what face could I publish a new edition of a 
dogmatic creed, and ask them to receive it as gospel ? Would 
it not be plain to them that no certainty was to be found any- 
where? Well, in my defence I could but make a lame 
apology ; however, it was the true one, viz., that I had not 
read the Fathers critically enough ; that in such nice points, as 
those which determine the angle of divergence between the 
two Churches, I had made considerable miscalculations ; and 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 237 

how came this about? Why the fact was, unpleasant as it 
was to avow, that I had leaned too much upon the assertions 
of TJssher, Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow, and had been deceived 
by them. Valeat quantum, — it was all that could be said. 
This then was a chief reason of that wording of the Retrac- 
tation which has given so much offence, and the following letter 
will illustrate it : — 

" April 3, 1844. I wish to remark on W.'s chief distress, 
that my changing my opinion seemed to unsettle one's con- 
fidence in truth and falsehood as external things, and led one 
to be suspicious of the new opinion as one became distrustful 
of the old. Now in what I shall say, I am not going to speak 
in favour of my second thoughts in comparison of my first, 
but against such scepticism and unsettlement about truth and 
falsehood generally, the idea of which is very painful. 

" The case with me, then, was this, and not surely an un- 
natural one : — as a matter of feeling and of duty I threw my- 
self into the system which I found myself in. I saw that the 
English Church had a theological idea or theory as such, and 
I took it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and thought it (as I 
still think it) very masterly. The Anglican Theory was very 
distinctive. I admired it and took it on faith. It did not (I 
think) occur to me to doubt it ; I saw that it was able, and 
supported by learning, and I felt it was a duty to maintain it. 
Further, on looking into^ Antiquity and reading the Fathers, I 
saw such portions of it as I examined, fully confirmed (e. g. 
the supremacy of Scripture). There was only one question 
about which I had a doubt, viz., whether it would work^ for it 
has never been more than a paper system. . . . 

" So far from my change of opinion having any fair ten- 
dency to unsettle persons as to truth and falsehood viewed as 
objective realities, it should be considered whether such change 
is not necessary^ if truth be a real objective thing, and be made 
to confront a person who has been brought up in a system 
short of truth. Surely the continuance of a person who wishes 
to go right in a wrong system, and not his giving it up, 



238 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

would be that which militated against the objectiveness of 
Truth, leading, as it would, to the suspicion, that one thing 
and another were equally pleasing to our Maker, where men 
were sincere. 

" Nor surely is it a thing I need be sorry for, that I de- 
fended the system in which I found myself, and thus have had to 
unsay my words. For is it not one's duty, instead of begin- 
ning with criticism, to throw oneself generously into that form 
of religion which is providentially put before one ? Is it right, 
or is it wrong, to begin with private judgment ? May we not, 
on the other hand, look for a blessing through obedience even 
to an erroneous system, and a guidance by means of it out of 
it? Were those who were strict and conscientious in their 
Judaism, or those who were lukewarm and sceptical, more 
likely to be led into Christianity, when Christ came ? Yet in 
proportion to their previous zeal, would be their appearance of 
inconsistency. Certainly I have always contended that obedi- 
ence even to an erring conscience was the way to gain light, 
and that it mattered not where a man began, so that he began 
on what came to hand, and in faith ; and that any thing might 
become a divine method of Truth ; that to the pure all things 
are pure, and have a self-correcting virtue and a power of ger- 
minating. And though I have no right at all to assume that 
this mercy is granted to me, yet the fact, that a person in. my 
situation may have it granted to him, seems to me to remove 
the perplexity which my change of opinion may occasion. 

" It may be said, — ^I have said it to myself, — ' Why, how- 
ever, did you puhlishf had you waited quietly, you would 
have changed your opinion without any of the misery which 
now is involved in the change, of disappointing and distressing 
people.' I answer that things are so bound up together, as to 
form a whole, and one cannot tell what is or is not a condition 
of what. I do not see how possibly I could have published 
the Tracts, or other works professing to defend our Church, 
without accompanying them with a strong protest or argument 
against Rome. The one obvious objection against the whole 



mSTOKT OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 239 

Anglican line is, that it is Roman ; so that I really think there 
was no alternative between silence altogether, and forming a 
theory and attacking the Roman system." 

2. And now, secondly, as to my Resignation of St. Mary's, 
which was the second of the steps which I took in 1843. 
The ostensible, direct, and sufficient cause of my doing so was 
the persevering attack of the Bishops on Tract 90. I alluded 
to it in the letter which I have inserted above, addressed to 
one of the most influential among them. A series of their ex 
cathedra judgments, lasting through three years, and including 
a notice of no little severity in a charge of my own Bishop, 
came as near to a condemnation of my Tract, and, so far, to 
a repudiation of the ancient Catholic doctrine, which was the 
scope of the Tract, as was possible in the Church of England. 
It was in order to shield the Tract from such a condemnation, 
that I had at the time of its publication so simply put myself 
at the disposal of the higher powers in London. At that time, 
all that was distinctly contemplated in the way of censure, 
was the message which my Bishop sent me, that it was " ob- 
jectionable." That I thought was the end of the matter. I 
had refused to suppress it, and they had yielded that point. 
Since I wrote the former portions of this narrative, I have 
found what I wrote to Dr. Pusey on March 24, while the 
matter was in progress. "The more I think of it," I said, 
" the more reluctant I am to suppress Tract 90, though of 
course I will do it if the Bishop wishes it ; I cannot, however, 
deny that I shall feel it a severe act." According to the notes 
which I took of the letters or messages which I sent to him in 
the course of that day, I went on to say, " My first feeling 
was to obey without a word ; I will obey still ; but my judg- 
ment has steadily risen against it ever since." Then in the 
Postscript, " If I have done any good to the Church, I do ask 
the Bishop this favour, as my reward for it, that he would not 
insist on a measure, from which I think good will not come. 
However, I will submit to him." Afterwards, I get stronger 
still ; " I have almost come to the resolution, if the Bishop 



240 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

publicly intimates that I must suppress the Tract, or speaks 
strongly in his charge against it, to suppress it indeed, but to 
resign my living also. I could not in conscience act otherwise. 
You may show this in any quarter you please." 

All my then hopes, all my satisfaction at the apparent ful- 
filment of those hopes, were at an end in 1843. It is not won- 
derful then, that in May of that year I addressed a letter on 
the subject of St. Mary's to the same friend, whom I had con- 
sulted about retiring from it in 1840. But I did more now ; 
I told him my great unsettlement of mind on the question of 
the Churches. I will insert portions of two of my letters : — 

"May 4, 1843 At present I fear, as far as I can 

analyze my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic 
Communion to be the Church of the Apostles, and that what 
grace is among us (which, through God's mercy, is not little) 
is extraordinary, and from the overflowings of His dispensa- 
tion. I am very far more sure that England is in schism, 
than that the Roman additions to the Primitive Creed may not 
be developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of 
the Divine Depositum of Faith. 

"You wUl now understand what gives edge to the Bishops' 
Charges, vdthout any undue sensitiveness on my part. They 
distress me in two ways : — first, as being in some sense pro- 
tests and witnesses to my conscience against my own unfaith- 
fulness to the English Church, and next, as being samples of 
her teaching, and tokens how very far she is from even aspir- 
ing to Catholicity. 

" Of course my being unfaithful to a trust is my great sub- 
ject of dread — as it has long been, as you know." 

When he wrote to make natural objections to my purpose, 
such as the apprehension that the removal of clerical obliga- 
tions might have the indirect effect of propelling me towards 
Rome, I answered : — 

"May 18, 1843. . . . My office or charge at St. Mar/s 
is not a mere state^ but a continual energy. People assume 
and assert certain things of me in consequence. With what 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 241 

sort of sincerity can I obey the Bishop ? how am I to act in 
the frequent cases, in which one way or another the Church of 
Rome comes into consideration ? I have to the utmost of my 
power tried to keep persons from Rome, and with some suc- 
cess ; but even a year and a half since, my arguments, though 
more efl&cacious with the persons I aimed at than any others 
could be, were of a nature to infuse great suspicion of me into 
the minds of lookers-on. 

"By retaining St. Mary's, I am an offence and a stumbling- 
block. Persons are keen-sighted enough to make out what I 
think on certain points, and then they infer that such opinions 
are compatible with holding situations of trust in our Church. 
A number of younger men take the validity of their interpre- 
tation of the Articles, &c., from me on faith. Is not my pres- 
ent position a cruelty, as well as a treachery towards the 
Church? 

" I do not see how I can either preach or publish again, 
while I hold St, Mary's ; — but consider again the following 
difficulty in such a resolution, which I must state at some 
length. 

" Last Long Vacation the idea suggested itself to me of 
publishing the Lives of the English Saints ; and I had a con- 
versation with [a publisher] upon it. I thought it would be 
usefdl, as employing the minds of men who were in danger of 
running wild, bringing them from doctrine to history, and from 
speculation to fact ; — again, as giving them an interest in the 
English soil, and the English Church, and keeping them from 
seeking sympathy in Rome, as she is ; and further, as seeking 
to promote the spread of right views. 

" But, within the last month, it has come upon me, that, 
if the scheme goes on, it will be a practical carrying out of 
No. 90 ; from the character of the usages and opinions of ante- 
reformation times. 

"It is easy to say, 'Why will you do any thing? why 
won't you keep quiet? what business had you to think of any 
such plan at all ? ' But I cannot leave a number of poor fel- 
11 



242 HISTOET OF MY RELIGIOUS OPTIONS. 

lows in the lurch. I am bound to do my best for a great 
number of people both in Oxford and elsewhere. If I did not 
act, others would find means to do so. 

" Well, the plan had been taken up with great eagerness 
and interest. Many men are setting to work. I set down the 
names of men, most of them engaged, the rest half engaged 
and probable, some actually writing." About thirty names 
follow, some of them at that time of the school of Dr. Arnold, 
others of Dr. Pusey's, some my personal friends and of my 
own standing, others whom I Jiardly knew, while of course 
the majority were of the party of the New Movement. I con- 
tinue : — 

"The plan has gone so far, that it would create surprise 
and talk, were it now suddenly given over. Yet how is it 
compatible with my holding St. Mary's, being what I am?" 

Such was the object and the origin of the projected Series 
of the English Saints ; and, as the publication was connected, 
as has been seen, with my resignation of St. Mary's, I may be 
allowed to conclude what I have to say on the subject here, 
though it will read like a digression. As soon then as the first 
of the Series got into print, the whole project broke down. I 
had already anticipated that some portions of the Series would 
be written in a style inconsistent with the professions of a 
beneficed clergyman, and therefore I had given up my Living ; 
but men of great weight went further, when they saw the Life 
of St. Stephen Harding, and decided that it was of such a 
character as to be inconsistent even with its being given to the 
world by an Anglican publisher : and so the scheme was given 
up at once. After the two first parts, I retired from the Edi- 
torship, and those Lives only were published in addition, 
which were then already finished, or in advanced preparation. 
The following passages from what I or others wrote at the 
time will illustrate what I have been saying : — 

In November, 1844, I wrote thus to one of the authors of 
them : " I am not Editor, I have no direct control over the 
Series. It is T.'s work ; he may admit what he pleases ; and 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 243 

exclude what he pleases. I was to have been Editor. I did 
edit the two first nurabers. I was responsible for them, in 
the way in which an Editor is responsible. Had I continued 
Editor, I should have exercised a control over all. I laid down 
in the Preface that doctrinal subjects were', if possible, to be 
excluded. But, even then, I also set down that no writer was 
to be held answerable for any of the Lives but his own. 
When I gave up the Editorship, I had various engagements 
with friends for separate Lives remaining on my hands. I 
should have liked to have broken from them all, but there were 
some from which I could not break, and I let them take their 
course. Some have come to nothing ; others like yours have 
gone on. I have seen such, either in MS. or Proof. As 
time goes on, I shall have less and less to do with the Series. 
I think the engagement between you and me should come to 
an end. I have any how abundant responsibility on me, and 
too much. I shall write to T. that if he wants the advantage 
of your assistance, he must write to you direct." 

In accordance with this letter, I had already advertised in 
January, 1844, ten months before it, that " other Lives," after 
St. Stephen Harding, " will be published by their respective 
authors on their own responsibility." This notice is repeated 
in February, in the advertisement to the second rolume en- 
titled " The Family of St. E-ichard," though to this volume 
also, for some reason, I also put my initials. In the Life of 
St. Augustine, the author, a man of nearly my own age, says 
in like manner, " No one but himself is responsible for the way 
in which these materials have been used." I have in MS. 
another advertisement to the same effect, but I cannot tell 
whether it was ever put into print. 

I will add, since the authors have been considered hot- 
headed boys, whom I was in charge of and whom I suffered 
to do intemperate things, that, while the writer of St. Augus- 
tine was of the mature age which I have stated, most of the 
others were on one side or the other of thirty. Three were 
under twenty-five. Moreover, of these writers some became 



244 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

Catholics, some remained Anglicans, and others have professed 
what are called free or liberal opinions. 

The immediate cause of the resignation of my Living is 
stated in the following letter, which I wrote to my Bishop : — 

" August 29, 1843. — It is with much concern that I in- 
form your Lordship that Mr. A. B., who has been for the last 
year an inmate of my house here, has just conformed to the 
Church of Rome. As I have ever been desirous, not only of 
faithfully discharging the trust, which is involved in holding a 
living in your Lordship's diocese, but of approving myself to 
your Lordship, I will for your information state one or two 

circumstances connected with this unfortunate event 

I received him on condition of his promising me, which he 
distinctly did, that he would remain quietly in our Church for 
three years. A year has passed since that time, and, though 
I saw nothing in him which promised that he would eventually 
be contented with his present position, yet for the time his 
mind became as settled as one could wish, and he frequently 
expressed his satisfaction at being under the promise which I 
had exacted of him." 

I felt it impossible to remain any longer in the service of 
the Anglican Church, when such a breach of trust, however 
little I had to do with it, would be laid to my door. I wrote 
in a few days to a friend : 

" September 7, 1843. — ^I this day ask the Bishop leave to 
resign St. Mary's. Men whom you little think, or at least 
whom I little thought, are in almost a hopeless way. Really 
we may expect any thing. I am going to publish a Volume 
of Sermons, including those Four against moving." 

I resigned my living on September 18th. I had not the 
means of doing it legally at Oxford. The late Mr. Groldsmid 
aided me in resigning it in London. I found no fault with 
the Liberals ; they had beaten me in a fair field. As to the 
act of the Bishops, I thought, as Walter Scott has applied the 
text, that they had " seethed the kid in his mother's milk." 



filSTOEY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 245 

I said to a friend : 

"Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni." 

And now I have brought almost to an end, as far as this 
sketch has to treat of them, the history both of my opinions, 
and of the public acts which they involved. I had only one 
more advance of mind to make ; and that was, to be certain 
of what I had hitherto anticipated, concluded, and believed ; 
and this was close upon my submission to the Catholic Church. 
And I had only one more act to perform, and that was the act 
of submission itself. But two years yet intervened before the 
date of these final events, during which I was in lay com- 
munion in the Church of England, attending its services as 
tisual, and abstaining altogether from intercourse with Catho- 
lics, from their places of worship, and from those religious 
rites and usages, such as the Invocation of Saints, which are 
characteristics of their creed. I did all this on principle ; for 
I never could understand how a man could be of two religions 
at once. 

What then I now have to add is of a private nature, being 
my preparation for the great event, for which I was waiting, 
in the interval between the autumns of 1843 and 1845. 

And I shall almost confine what I have to say to this one 
point, the difficulty I was in as to the best mode of revealing 
the state of my mind to my friends and others, and how I 
managed to do it. 

Up to January, 1842, I had not disclosed my state of un- 
settlement to more than three persons, as has been mentioned 
above, and is repeated in the letters which I am now about to 
give to the reader. To two of them, intimate and familiar 
companions, in the Autumn of 1839 : to the third, an old 
friend, too, when, I suppose, I was in great distress of mind 
upon the affair of the Jeru^akijiJSishopxic, In May, 1843, I 
mentioned it to the friend, by whose advice I wished, as far as 
possible, to be guided. To mention it on set purpose to any 
one, unless indeed I was asking advice, I should have felt to 



24:6 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPIKIONS. 

be a crime. If there is any thing that was and is abhorrent 
to me, it is the scattering doubts, and unsettling consciences 
without necessity. A strong presentiment that my existing 
opinions would ultimately give way, and that the grounds of 
them were unsound, was not a sufficient warrant for disclosing 
the state of my mind. I had no guarantee yet, that that pre- 
sentiment would be realized. Supposing I were crossing ice, 
which came right in my way, which I had good reasons for 
considering sound, and which I saw numbers before me cross- 
ing in safety, and supposing a stranger from the bank, in a 
voice of authority, and in an earnest tone, warned me that it 
was dangerous, and then was silent, I think I should be 
startled, and should look about me anxiously, but I also 
should go on, till I had better grounds for doubt ; and such 
was my state, I believe, till the end of 1842. Then again, 
when my dissatisfaction became greater, it was hard, at first to 
determine the point of time, when it was too strong to sup- 
press with propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but 
doubt is a progress ; I was not near certitude yet. Certitude 
is a reflex action ; it is to know that one knows. I belieye I 
had not that, till close upon my reception into the Catholic 
Church. Again, a practical, effective doubt is a point too, 
but who can easily ascertain it for himself ? Who can deter- 
mine when it is, that the scales in the balance of opinion begin 
to turn, and what was a greater probability in behalf of a be- 
lief becomes a positive doubt against it ? 

In considering this question in its bearing upon my con- 
duct in 1843, my own simple answer to my great difficulty 
was, Do what your present state of opinion requires, and let 
that doing tell ; speak by acts. This I did ; my first act of 
the year was in February, 1843. After three months' delibera- 
tion I published my retractation of the violent charges which 
I had made against Rome : I could not be wrong in doing so 
much as this ; but I did no more : I did not retract my Angli- 
can teaching. My second act was in September ; after much 
sorrowful lingering and hesitation, I resigned my Living. I 



HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 24:7 

tried indeed to keep Littlemore for myself, even though it was 
still to remain an integral part of St. Mary's. I had made it 
a Parish, and I loved it ; but I did not succeed in my attempt. 
I could indeed bear to become the curate at will of another, 
but I hoped still that I might have been my own master there. 
I had hoped an exception might have been made in my favour, 
under the circumstances ; but I did not gain my request. In- 
deed, I was asking what was impracticable, and it is well for 
me that it was so. 

These were my two acts of the year, and I said, " I can- 
not be wrong in making them ; let that follow which must fol- 
low in the thoughts of the world about me, when they see 
what I do." They fully answered my purpose. What I felt 
as a simple duty to do, did create a general suspicion about 
me, without such responsibility as would be involved in my 
taking the initiative in creating it. Then, when friends wrote 
me on the subject, I either did not deny or I confessed it, ac- 
cording to the character and need of their letters. Some- 
times, in the case of' intimate friends, whom I seemed to leave 
in ignorance of what others knew about me, I invited the 
question. 

And here comes in another point for explanation. While 
I was fighting for the Anglican Church in Oxford, then indeed 
I was very glad to make converts, and, though I never broke 
away from that rule of my mind (as I may call it) , of which 
I have already spoken, of finding disciples rather than seeking 
them, yet, that I made advances to others in a special way, I 
have no doubt ; this came to an end, however, as soon as I 
fell into misgivings as to the true ground to be taken in the 
controversy. Then, when I gave up my place in the Move- 
ment, I ceased from any such proceeding : and my utmost en- 
deavour was to tranquillize such persons, especially those who 
belonged to the new school, as were unsettled in their relig- 
ious views, and, as I judged, hasty in their conclusions. This 
went on till 1843 ; but, at that date, as soon as I turned my 
face Romeward, I gave up altogether and in any shape, as far 



248 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

as ever was possible, the thought of acting upon others. 
Then I myself was simply my own concern. How could I 
in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in so moment- 
ous a matter myself ? How could I be considered in a posi- 
tion, even to say a word to them one way or the other ? How 
could I presume to unsettle them, as I was unsettled, when I 
had no means of bringing them out of such unsettlement ? 
And, if they were unsettled already, how could I point to 
them a place of refuge, which I was not sure that I should 
choose for myself ? My only line, my only duty, was to keep 
simply to my own case. I recollected Pascal's words, " Je 
mourrai seul." I deliberately put out of my thoughts all 
other works and claims, and said nothing to any one, unless I 
was obliged. 

But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the news- 
papers there were continual reports about my intentions ; I 
did not answer them ; presently strangers or friends wrote, 
begging to be allowed to answer them ; and, if I still kept to 
my resolution and said nothing, then I was thought to be mys- 
terious, and a prejudice was excited against me. But, what 
was far worse, there were a number of tender, eager hearts, 
of whom I knew nothing at all, who were watching me, wish- 
ing to think as I thought, and to do as I did, if they could but 
find it out ; who in consequence were distressed, that, in so 
solemn a matter, they could not see what was coming, and 
who heard reports about me this way or that, on a first day 
and on a second ; and felt the weariness of waiting, and the 
sickness of delayed hope, and did not understand that I was as 
perplexed as themselves, and, being of more sensitive com- 
plexion of mind than myself, were made ill by the suspense. 
And they too of course for the time thought me mysterious 
and inexplicable. I ask their pardon as far as I was really 
unkind to them. ' -There was a gifted and deeply earnest lady, 
who in a parabolical account of that time, has described both 
my conduct as she felt it, and that of such as herself. In a 
singularly graphic, amusing vision of pilgrims, who were mak- 



HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 249 

ing their way across a bleak common in great discomfort, and 
who were ever warned against, yet continually nearing, " the 
king's highway" on the right, she says, "All my fears and 
disquiets were speedily renewed by seeing the most daring of 
our leaders (the same who had first forced his way through the 
palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all put im- 
plicit trust), suddenly stop short, and declare that he would go 
on no further. He did not, however, take the leap at once, 
but quietly sat down on the top of the fence with his feet hang- 
ing towards the road, as if he meant to take his time about it, 
and let himself down easily." I do not wonder at all that I 
thus seemed so unkind to a lady, who at that time had never 
seen me. We were both in trial in our different ways. I am 
far from denying that I was acting selfishly both towards them 
and towards others ; but it was a religious selfishness. Cer- 
tainly to myself my own duty seemed clear. They that are 
whole can heal others ; but in my case it was, " Physician, 
heal thyself." My own soul was my first concern, and it 
seemed an absurdity to my reason to be converted in partner- 
ship. I wished to go to my Lord by myself, and in my own 
way, or rather His way. I had neither wish, nor, I may say, 
thought of taking a number with me. But nothing of this 
could be known to others. 

The following three letters are written to a friend, who 
had every claim upon me to be frank with him : — it will be 
seen that I disclose the real state of mind to him, in propor- 
tion as he presses me. 

1. " October 14, 1843. I would tell you in a few words 
why I have resigned St. Mary's, as you seem to wish, were it 
possible to do so. But it is most difiicult to bring out in brief, 
or even in extenso, any just view of my feelings and reasons. 

" The nearest approach I can give to a general account of 
them is to say, that it has been caused by the general repudia- 
tion of the view, contained in No. 90, on the part of the 
Church. I could not stand against such an unanimous ex- 
pression of opinion from the Bishops, supported, as it has 
11* 



250 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 

been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of all classes in 
the Church, lay and clerical. If there ever was a case, in 
which an individual teacher has been put aside^and virtually 
put away by a community, miine is one. No decency has 
been observed in the attacks upon me from authority ; no pro- 
tests have been offered against them. It is felt, — I am far 
from denying, justly felt, — that I am a foreign material, and 
cannot assimilate wdth the Church of England. 

" Even my own Bishop has said that my mode of inter- 
preting the Articles makes them mean any thing or nothing. 
When I heard this delivered, I did not believe my ears. I 

denied to others that it was said Out came the charge, 

and the words could not be mistaken. This astonished me 
the more, because I published that Letter to him (how unwill- 
ingly you know) , on the understanding that I was to deliver 
his judgment on No. 90 instead of him. A year elapses, and 
a second and heavier judgment came forth. I did not bargain 
for this, — nor did he, but the tide was too strong for him. 

" I fear that I must confess, that, in proportion as I think 
the English Church is showing herself intrinsically and radi- 
cally alien from Catholic principles, so do I feel the difficulties 
of defending her claims to be a branch of the Catholic Church. 
It seems a dream to call a communion Catholic, when one 
can neither appeal to any clear statement of Catholic doctrine 
in its formularies, not interpret ambiguous formularies by the 
received and living Catholic sense, whether past or present. 
Men of Catholic views are too truly but a party in our Church. 
I cannot deny that many other independent circumstances, 
which it is not worth while entering into, have led me to the 
same conclusion. 

" I do not say all this to everybody, as you may suppose ; 
but I do not like to make a secret of it to you." 

2. " Oct. 25, 1843. You have engaged in a dangerous 
correspondence ; I am deeply sorry for the pain I shall give 
you. 

"I must tell you then frankly (but I combat arguments 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPHSTIONS. 251 

which to me, alas ! are shadows), that it is not from disap- 
pointment, irritation, or impatience, that I have, whether 
rightly or wrongly, resigned St. Mary's ; but because I think 
the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours not part 
of the Catholic Church, because not in communion with Rome ; 
and because I feel that I could not honestly be a teacher in it 
any longer." 

" This thought came to me last summer four years. . . I 
mentioned it to two friends in the autumn. . . It arose in the 
first instance from the Monophysite and Donatist controver- 
sies, the former of which I was engaged with in the course of 
theological study to which I had given myself. This was at 
a time when no Bishop, I believe, had declared against us, 
and when all was progress and hope. I do not think I have 
ever felt disappointment or impatience, certainly not then ; for 
I never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize it now. 

" My first effort was to write that article on the Catholi- 
city of the English Church ; for two years it quieted me. 
Since the summer of 1839 I have written little or nothing on 
modern controversy. . . You know how unwillingly I wrote 
my letter to the Bishop in which I committed myself again, 
as the safest course under circumstances. The article I speak 
of quieted me till the end of 1841, over the affair of No. 90, 
when that wretched Jerusalem Bishopric (no personal matter) 
revived all my alarms. They have increased up to this mo- 
ment. At that time I told my secret to another person in ad- 
dition. 

" You see then that the various ecclesiastical and quasi- 
ecclesiastical acts, which have taken place in the course of the 
last two years and a half, are not the cause of my state of 
opinion, but are keen stimulants and weighty confirmation of 
a conviction forced upon me, while engaged in the course of 
duty, viz., that theological reading to which I had given my- 
self. And this last-mentioned circumstance is a fact, which 
has never, I think, come before me till now that I write to you. 

"It is three years since, on account of my state of opin- 



252 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, 

ion, I urged tlie Provost in vain to let St. Mary's be separated 
from Littlemore ; thinking I might with a safe conscience 
serve the latter, though I could not comfortably continue in so 
public a place as a University. This was before No. 90. 

"Finally, I have acted under advice, and that, not of my 
own choosing, but what came to me in the way of duty, nor 
the advice of those only who agree with me, but of near friends 
who dijffer from me. 

" I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far as I see, 
in the matter of impatience; i. e. practically or in conduct. 
And I trust that He, who has kept me in the slow course of 
change hitherto, will keep me still from hasty acts or resolves 
with a doubtful conscience. 

" This I am sure of, that such interposition as yours, kind 
as it is, only does what you would consider harm. It makes 
nae realize my own views to myself ; it makes me see their 
consistency ; it assures me of my own deliberateness ; it sug- 
gests to me the traces of a Providential Hand ; it takes away 
the pain of disclosures ; it relieves me of a heavy secret. 

" You may make what use of my letters you think right." 

My correspondent wrote to me once more, and I replied 
thus : " October 31, 1843. Your letter has made my heart 
ache more, and caused me more and deeper sighs than any 
I have had a long while, though I assure you there is much 
on all sides of me to cause sighing and heart-ache. On all 
sides I am quite haunted by the one dreadful whisper repeated 
from so many quarters, and causing the keenest distress to 
friends. You know but a part of my present trial, in know- 
ing that I am unsettled myself. 

" Since the beginning of this year I have been obliged to 
tell the state of my mind to some others ; but never, I think, 
without being in a way obliged, as from friends writing to me 
as you did, or guessing how matters stood. No one in Ox- 
ford knows it or here" [Littlemore], " but one friend whom I 
felt I could not help telling the other day. But, I suppose, 
very many suspect it." 



HISTORY OF MY EELiaiOUS OPINIONS. 253 

On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if I recollect 
rightly, at once communicated the matter of them to Dr. 
Pusey, and this will enable me to state as nearly as I can the 
way in which my changed state of opinion was made known 
to him. 

I had from the first a great difficulty in making Dr. Pusey 
understand such differences of opinion as existed between him- 
self and me. When there was a proposal about the end of 
1838 for a subscription for a Cranmer Memorial, he wished 
us both to subscribe together to it. I could not, of course, 
and wished him to subscribe by himself. That he would not 
do ; he could not bear the thought of our appearing to the 
world in separate positions, in a matter of importance. And, 
as time went on, he would not take any hints, which I gave 
him, on the subject of my growing inclination to Rome. 
When I found him so determined, I often had not the heart to 
go on. And then I knew, that, from affection to me, he so 
often took up and threw himself into what I said, that I felt 
the great responsibility I should incur, if I put things before 
him just as I might view them. And, not knowing him so 
well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I should unsettle him. 
And moreover, I recollected well, how prostrated he had been 
with illness in 1832, and I used always to think that the start 
of the Movement had given him a fresh life. I fancied that 
his physical energies even depended on the presence of a vig- 
orous hope and bright prospects for his imagination to feed 
upon ; so much so, that when he was so unworthily treated 
by the authorities of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to 
the late Mr. Dodsworth to state my anxiety, lest, if his mind 
became dejected in consequence, his health would suffer se- 
riously also. These were difficulties in my way ; and then 
again, another difficulty was, that, as we were not together 
under the same roof, we only saw each other at set times ; 
others indeed, who were coming in or out of my rooms freely, 
and as there might be need at the moment, knew all ray 
thoughts easily ; but for him to know them well, formal efforts 



254 HISTOEY OF MY EELiaiOIJS OPINIONS. 

were necessary. A common friend of ours broke it all to him 
in 1841, as far as matters had gone at that time, and showed 
him clearly the logical conclusions which must lie in proposi- 
tions to which I had committed myself; but somehow or 
other, in a little while his mind fell back into its former happy 
state, and he could not bring himself to believe that he and I 
should not go on pleasantly together to the end. But that«if- 
fectionate dream needs must have been broken at last ; and 
two years afterwards, that friend to whom I wrote the letters 
which I have just now inserted, set himself, as I have said, to 
break it. Upon that, I too begged Dr. Pusey to tell in private 
to any one he would, that I thought in the event I should 
leave the Church of England. However, he would not do so ; 
and at the end of 1844 had almost relapsed into his former 
thoughts about me, if I may judge from a letter of his which 
I have found. Nay, at the Commemoration of 1845, a few 
months before I left the Anglican Church, I think he said 
about me to a friend, " I trust after all we shall keep him." 

In that autumn of 1843, at the time that I spoke to Dr. 
Pusey, I asked another friend also to communicate to others 
in confidence the prospect which lay before me. 

To another friend I gave the opportunity of knowing it, if 
he would, in the following Postscript to a letter : — 

" While I write, I will add a word about myself. You 
may come near a person or two who, owing to circumstances, 
know more exactly my state of feeling than you do, though 
they would not tell you. Now I do not like that you should 
not be aware of this, though I see no reason why you should 
know what they happen to know. Your wishing it otherwise 
would &e a reason." 

I had a dear and old friend, near his death ; I never told 
him my state of mind. Why should I unsettle that sweet 
calm tranquillity, when I had nothing to oiFer him instead? I 
could not say, " GrO to Eome ; " else I should have shown him 
the way. Yet I offered myself for his examination. One 
day he led the way to my speaking out ; but, rightly or 



HISTORY O^ MY EELIGIOTTS OPINIONS. 255 

wrongly, I could not respond. My reason was, " I have no 
certainty on the matter myself. To say ' I think ' is to tease 
and to distress, not to persuade." 

I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843 : "As you may 
suppose, I have nothing to write to you about, pleasant. I 
could tell you some very painful things ; but it is best not to 
anticipate trouble, which after all can but happen, and, for 
what one knows, may be averted. You are always so kind, 
that sometimes, when I part with you, I am nearly moved 
to tears, and it would be a relief to be so, at your kindness 
and at my hardness. I think no one ever had such kind 
friends as I have." 

The next year, January 22, I wrote to him : " Pusey has 
quite enough on him, and generously takes on himself more 
than enough, for me to add burdens when I am not obliged ; 
particularly, too, when I am very conscious, that there are 
burdens, which I am or shall be obliged to lay upon him some 
time or other, whether I will or no." 

And on February 21 : " Half-past ten. I am just up, 
having a bad cold ; the like has not happened to me (except 
twice in January) in my memory. You may think you have 
been in my thoughts, long before my rising. Of course you 
are so continually, as you well know. I could not come to 
see you ; I am not worthy of friends. With my opinions, 
to the full of which I dare not confess, I feel like a guilty per- 
son with others, though I trust I am not so. People kindly 
think that I have much to bear externally, disappointment, 
slander, &c. No, I have nothing to bear but the anxiety wliich 
I feel for my friends' anxiety for me, and their perplexity. This 
[letter] is a better Ash- Wednesday than birthday present ; " 
[his birthday was the same day as mine ; it was Ash-Wednes- 
day that year] ; " but I cannot help writting about what is 
uppermost. And now all kindest and best wishes to you, my 
oldest friend, whom I must not speak more about, and with 
reference to myself, lest you should be angry." It was not in 
his nature to have doubts : he used to look at me with anxiety, 
and wonder what had come over me. 



256 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

On Easter Monday : " All that is good and gracious de- 
scend upon you and yours from the influences of this Blessed 
Season ; and it will be so, (so be it !) for what is the life of 
you all, as day passes after day, but a simple endeavour to 
serve Him, from whom all blessing comes ? Though we are 
separated in place, yet this we have in common, that you are 
living a calm and cheerful time, and I am enjoying the thought 
of you. It is your blessing to have a clear heaven, and peace 
around, according to the blessing pronounced on Benjamin. 
So it is, and so may it ever be." 

He was in simple good faith. He died in September that 
year. I had expected that his last illness would have brought 
light to my mind, as to what I ought to do. It brought none. 
I made a note, which runs thus : "I sobbed bitterly over his 
coffin, to think that he left me still dark as to what the way of 
truth was, and what I ought to do in order to please God and 
fulfil His will." I think I wrote to Charles Harriot to say, 
that at that moment, with the thought of my friend before me, 
my strong view in favour of Rome remained just what it was. 
On the other hand, my firm belief that grace was to be found 
in the Anglican Church remained too.* I wrote to a friend 
upon his death : — 

" Sept. 16, 1844. I am full of wrong and miserable feel- 
ings, which it is useless to detail, so grudging and sullen, 
when I should be thankful. Of course, when one sees so 
blessed an end, and that, the termination of so blameless a 
life, of one who really fed on our ordinances and got strength 
from them, and see the same continued in a whole family, the 
little children finding quite a solace of their pain in the Daily 
Prayer, it is impossible not to feel more at ease in our Church, 
as at least a sort of Zoar, a place of refuge and temporary rest, 
because of the steepness of the way. Only, may we be kept 
from unlawful security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for 
our progeny, the enemies of Israel." 

* On this. subject, vid. my Third Lecture on " Anghcan Difficulties." 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 257 

I could not continue in this state, either in the light of 
duty or of reason. My difficulty was this : I had been de- 
ceived greatly once ; how could I be sure that I was not 
deceived a second time ? I then thought myself right ; how 
was I to be certain that I was right now ? How many years 
had I thought myself sure of what I now rejected? how could 
I ever again have confidence in myself? As in 1840 I list- 
ened to the rising doubt in favour of Rome, now I listened to 
the waning doubt in favour of the English Church. To be 
certain is to know that one knows ; what test had I, that I 
should not change again, after that I had become a Catholic ? 
I had still apprehension of this, though I thought a time would 
come when it would depart. However, some limit ought to 
be put to these vague misgivings ; I must do my best and then 
leave it to a higher power to prosper it. So, I determined to 
wxite an Essay on Doctrinal Development ; and then, if, at 
the end of it, my convictions in favour of the Roman Church 
were not weaker, to make up my mind to seek admission 
into her fold. I acted upon this resolution in the beginning 
of 1845, and worked at my Essay steadily into the autumn. 

I told my resolution to various friends at the beginning of 
the year ; indeed, it was at that time known generally. I 
wrote to a friend thus : — 

" My intention is, if nothing comes upon me, which I can- 
not foresee, to remain quietly in statu quo for a considerable 
time, trusting that my friends will kindly remember me and 
mj trial in their prayers. And I should give up my fellowship 
some time before any thing further took place." 

One very dear friend, now no more, Charles Marriott, sent 
me a letter at the beginning of the next year, from which, from 
love of him, I quote some sentences : — 

"January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to be 
aware, that I never see through any thing at first. Your let- 
ter to B. casts a gloom over the future, which you can under- 
stand, if you have understood me, as I believe you have. But 
I may speak out at once, of what I see and feel at once, and 



258 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOrS OPmiONS. 

doubt not that I shall ever feel: that your whole conduct 
towards the Church of England and towards us, who have 
striven and are still striving to seek after God for ourselves, 
and to revive true religion among others, under her authority 
and guidance, has been generous and considerate, and, were 
that word appropriate, dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely 
have conceived possible, more unsparing of self than I should 
have thought nature could sustain. I have felt with pain every 
link that you have severed, and I have asked no questions, be- 
cause I felt that you ought to measure the disclosure of your 
thoughts according to the occasion, and the capacity of those 
to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the midst of engage- 
ments engrossing in themselves, but partly made tasteless, partly 
embittered by what I have heard ; but I am willing to trust 
even you, whom I lovfe best on earth, in God's Hand, in the 
earnest prayer that you may be so employed as is best for the 
Holy Catholic Church." 

There was a lady, who was very anxious on the subject, 
and I wrote to her the following letters : — 

1. " October, 1844. What can I say more to your pur- 
pose ? If you will ask me any specific questions, I will an- 
swer them, as far as I am able." ■ 

2. " November 7, 1844. I am still where I was ; I am 
not moving. Two things, however, seem plain, that every 
one is prepared for such an event ; next, that every one expects 
it of me. Few, indeed, who do not think it suitable, fewer 
still, who do not think it likely. However, I do not think it 
either suitable or likely. I have very little reason to doubt 
about the issue of things, but the when and the how are known 
to Him, from whom, I trust, both the course of things and the 
issue come. The expression of opinion, and the latent and 
habitual feeling about me, which is on every side and among 
all parties, has great force. I insist upon it because I have a 
great dread of going by my own feelings, lest they should mis- 
lead me. By one's sense of duty one must go ; but external 
facts support one in doing so." 



HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 259 

3. " January 8, 1845. My Ml belief is, in accordance 
with your letter, that, if there is a move in our Church, very 
few persons indeed will be partners to it. I doubt whether 
one or two at the most among residents at Oxford. And I 
don't know whether I can wish it. The state of the Roman 
Catholics is at present so unsatisfactory. This I am sure of, 
that nothing but a simple, direct call of 'duty is a warrant for 
any one leaving our Church ; no preference of another Church, 
no delight in its services, no hope of greater religious advance- 
ment in it, no indignatioti, no disgust, at the persons and things, 
among which we may find ourselves in the Church of England. 
The simple question is. Can I (it is personal, not whether an- 
other, but can J) be saved in the English Church ? am / in 
safety, were I to die to-night? Is it a mortal sin in we, not 
joining another communion? P. S. I hardly see my way to 
concur in attendance, though occasional, 'in the Roman Catho- 
lic chapel, unless a man has made up his mind pretty well to 
join it eventually. Invocations are not required in the Church 
of Rome ; somehow, I do not like using them except under the 
sanction of the Church, and this makes me unwilling to admit 
them in members of our Church." 

4. " March 30. Now I will tell you more than any one 
knows except two friends. My own convictions are as strong, 
as I suppose they can become : only it is so difficult to know 
whether it is a call of reason or of conscience. I cannot make 
out if I am impelled by what seems clear^ or by a sense of 
duty. You can understand how painful this doubt is ; so I 
have waited, hoping for light, and using the words of the Psalm- 
ist, ' Show some token upon me.' But I suppose I have no 
right to wait forever for this. Then I am waiting, because 
friends are most considerately bearing me in mind, and asking 
guidance for me ; and, I trust, I should attend to any new feel- 
ings which came upon me, should that be the effect of their 
kindness. And then this waiting subserves the purpose of pre- 
paring men's minds. I dread shocking, unsettling people. 
Any how, I can't avoid giving incalculable pain. So, if I had 



260 HI8T0EY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 

my will, I should like to wait till the summer of 1846, which 
wouldjbe a full seven years from the time that my convictions 
first began to fall on me. But I don't think I shall last so long. 

" My present intention is to give up my Fellowship in Oc- 
tober, and to publish some work or treatise between that and 
Christmas. I wish people to know why I am acting, as well 
as what I am doing ; it takes off that vague and distressing sur- 
prise, 'What can have made him?"' 

5. "June 1. What you tell me of yourself makes it plain 
that it is your duty to remain quietly tnd patiently, till you see 
more clearly where you are ; else you are leaping in the dark." 

In the early part of this year, if not before, there was an 
idea afloat that my retirement from the Anglican Church was 
owing to the feeling that I had so been thrust aside, without 
any one's taking my part. Various measures were, I believe, 
talked of in consequence of this surmise. Coineidently with it 
was an exceedingly kind article about me in a Quarterly, in its 
April number. The writer praised me in feeling and beautiful 
language far above my deserts. In the course of his remarks, 
he said, speaking of me as Vicar of St. Mary's : " He had the 
future race of clergy hearing him. Did he value and feel ten- 
der about, and cling to his position ? . . . Not at all. . . . No 
sacrifice to him, perhaps, he did not care about such things." 

This was the occasion of my writing to a very intimate 
friend the following letter : — 

" April 3, 1845. . . . Accept this apology, my dear C, and 
forgive me. As I say so, tears come into my eyes, — that 
arises from the accident of this time, when I am giving up so 
much I love. Just now I have been overset by A. B.'s arti- 
cle in the C. D. ; yet really, my dear C, I have never for an 
instant had even the temptation of repenting my leaving Ox- 
ford. The feeling of repentance has not even come into my 
mind. How could it? How could I remain at St. Mary's 
a hypocrite ? how could I be answerable for souls (and life so 
uncertain), with the convictions, or at least persuasions, which 
I had upon me ? It is indeed a responsibility to act as I am 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 261 

doing, and I feel His hand heavy on me without intermission, 
who is all Wisdom and Love, so that my heart and mind are tired 
out, just as the limbs might be from a load on one's back. 
That sort of dull aching pain is mine ; but my responsibility 
really is nothing to what it would be, to be answerable for 
souls, for confiding loving souls, in the English Church, with 
my convictions. My love to Marriott, and save me the pain 
of sending him a line." 

In July a Bishop thought it worth while to give out to the 
world that " the adherents of Mr. Newman are few in num- 
ber. A short time will now probably suffice to prove this fact. 
It is well known that he is preparing for secession ; and, when 
that event takes place, it will be seen how few will go with 
him." 

All this time I was hard at my Essay on Doctrinal Devel- 
opment. As I advanced, my view so cleared that instead of 
speaking any more of " the Roman Catholics," I boldly called 
them Catholics. Before I got to the end, I resolved to be re- 
ceived, and the book remains in the state in which it was then, 
unfinished. 

On October 8th I wrote to a number of friends the follow- 
ing letter : — 

" Littlemore, October 8, 1845. I am this night expecting 
Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his youth, has been 
led to have distinct and directs thoughts, first of the countries 
of the North, then of England. After thirty years' (almost) 
waiting, he was without his own act sent here. But he has had 
little to do with conversions. I saw him here for a few min- 
utes on St. John Baptist's day last year. He does not know 
of my intention ; but I mean to ask of him admission into the 
one Fold of Christ. . . . 

" I have so many letters to write, that this must do for all 
who choose to ask about me. With my best love to dear 
Charles Marriott, who is over your head, &c., &c. 

" P. S. — This will not go till all is over. Of course it re- 
quires no answer." 



262 HISTORY OF MY RELiaiOUS OPINIONS. 

For a while after my reception, I proposed to betake my- 
self to some secular calling. I wrote thus in answer to a very 
gracious letter of congratulation : — 

"Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have anticipated, be- 
fore I express it, the great gratification which I received from 
your Eminence's letter. That gratification, however, was 
tempered by the apprehension, that kind and anxious well- 
wishers at a distance attach more importance to my step than 
really belongs to it. To me, indeed, personally it is of course 
an inestimable gain : but persons and things look great at a 
distance, which are not so when seen close ; and, did your 
Eminence know me, you would see that I was one, about 
whom there has been far more talk for good and bad than he 
deserves, and about whose movements far more expectation 
has been raised than the event will justify. 

" As I never, I do trust, aimed at any thing else than 
obedience to my own sense of right, and have been magnified 
into the leader of a party without my wishing it or acting as 
such, so now, much as I may wish to the contrary, and earnest- 
ly as I may labour (as is my duty) to minister in a humble 
way to the Catholic Church, yet my powers will, I fear, dis- 
appoint the expectations of both my own friends, and of those 
who pray for the peace of Jerusalem. 

" If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is that you 
would kindly moderate those anticipations. Would it were in 
my power to do, what I do not aspire to do ! At present cer- 
tainly I cannot look forward to the fature, and, though it would 
be a good work if I could persuade others to do as I have 
done, yet it seems as if I had quite enough to do in thinking 
of myself." 

Soon, Dr. Wiseman, in whose Vicariate Oxford lay, called 
me to Oscott ; and I went there with others ; afterwards he 
sent me to Rome, and finally placed me in Birmingham. 

I wrote to a friend : — 

" January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely I am. 
* Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui,' has been in 



HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOTJS OPTNIOl^S. 263 

my ears for the last twelve hours, I realize more that we are 
leaving Littlemore, and it is like going on the open sea." 

I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. 
On the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my house at 
Littlemore simply by myself, as I had been for the first day or 
two when I had originally taken possession of it. I slept on 
Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. Johnson's at the Ob- 
servatory. Various friends came to see the last of me ; Mr. 
Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. 
Lewis. Dr. Pusey too came up to take leave of me ; and I 
called on Dr. Ogle, one of my very oldest friends, for he was 
my private Tutor, when I was an Undergraduate. In him I 
took leave of my first College, Trinity, which was so dear to 
me, and which held on its foundation so many who have been 
kind to me both when I was a boy, and all through my Oxford 
life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to 
be much snap-dragon growing on the walls opposite my fresh- 
man's rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem 
of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my Uni- 
versity. 

On the morning of the 23d I left the Observatory. I have 
never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen 
from the railway. 



PART VII. 

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 

From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have 
no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In say- 
ing this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or 
that I have given up thinking on theological subjects ; but that 
I have had no changes to record, and have had no anxiety of 
heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment. 
I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, 
on my conversion, of any difference of thought or of temper 
from what I had before. I was not conscious of firmer faith 
in the fundamental truths of revelation, or of more self-com- 
mand ; I had not more fervour ; but it was like coming into 
port after a rough sea ; and my happiness on that score remains 
to this day without interruption. 

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional ar- 
ticles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of 
them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial 
to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with 
the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them 
now. I am far, of course, from denying that every article of the 
Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, 
is beset with intellectual difficulties ; and it is simple fact, that, 
for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons 
are very sensitive of the difficulties of religion ; I am as sensi- 



GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 265 

tive as any one ; but I have never been able to see a connexion 
between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and 
multiplying them to any extent, and doubting the doctrines to 
which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not 
make one doubt, as I understand the subject ; difficulty and 
doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficul- 
ties in the evidence ; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic 
to the doctrines, or to their compatibility with each other. A 
man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical 
problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, with- 
out doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a particular 
answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a 
God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most dif- 
ficulty, and borne in upon our minds with most power. 

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is diffi- 
cult to believe ; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a 
Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as soon as I be- 
lieved that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, 
and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the origi- 
nal revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant — 
but how is it difficult to believe ? Yet Macaulay thought it so 
difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents 
as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself 
to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist 
" the overwhelniing force of the argument against it." " Sir 
Thomas More," he says, " is one of the choice specimens of 
wisdom and virtue ; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a 
kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will 
stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I 
cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should not it be? 
What's to hinder it ! What do I know of substance or mat- 
ter? just as much as the greatest philosophers, and that is 
nothing at all;" — so much is this the case, that there is a 
rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena 
to constitute the whole of our knowledge in physics. The 
Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone. It does not say 
12 



266 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

that the phenomena go ; on the contrary, it says that they re- 
main : nor does it say that the same phenomena are in several 
places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows 
any thing about, the material substances themselves. And, in 
like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well 
as of the Catholic Creed, — ^the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. 
What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being ? I know 
that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my 
idea of one ; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, 
I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which 
one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable 
God. 

But I am going to take upon myself, the responsibility of 
more than the mere Creed of the Church ; as the parties accus- 
ing me are determined I shall do. They say, that now, in 
that I am a Catholic, though I may not have offences of my 
own against honesty to answer for, yet, at least, I am answer- 
able for the offences of others, of my co-religionists, of my 
brother priests, of the Church herself. I am quite willing to 
accept the responsibility ; and, as I have been able, as I trust, 
by means of a few words, to dissipate, in the minds of all 
those who do not begin with disbelieving me, the suspicion 
with which so many Protestants start, in forming their judg- 
ment of Catholics, viz., that our Creed is actually set up in 
inevitable superstition and hypocrisy, as the original sin of 
Catholicism : so now I will go on, as before, identifying my- 
self with the Church and vindicating it, — not of course deny- 
ing the enormous mass of sin and ignorance which exists of 
necessity in the world-wide multiform Communion, — but going 
to the proof of this one point, that its system is in no sense 
dishonest, and that therefore the upholders and teachers of that 
system, as such, have a claim to be acquitted in their own 
persons of that odious imputation. 

Starting then with the being of a God (which, as I have 
said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence. 



GENEEAL ANSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 2GT 

though when I try to put the grounds of that certainty into 
logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so in mood and figure 
to my satisfaction) , I look out of myself into the world of men, 
and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable dis- 
tress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that great 
truth, of which my whole being is so full ; and the effect upon 
me is, in consequence, as a matter. of necessity, as cotifusing 
as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into 
a mirror, and did not see my face,, I should have the sort of 
feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this 
living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator. This 
is, to me, one of the great difficulties of this absolute primary 
truth, to which I referred just now. "Were it not for this 
voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I 
should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I 
looked into the world. I am speaking for myself only ; and I 
am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof 
of a G-od, drawn from the general facts of human saciety, but 
these do not warm me or enlighten me ; they do not take away 
the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the 
leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. The 
sight of <the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full 
of " lamentations, and mourning, and woe." 

To consider the vf orld in its length and breadth, its various 
history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, 
their mutual alienation, their conflicts ; and then their ways, 
habits, governments, forms of worship ; their enterprises, their 
aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, 
the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so 
faint and broken, of a superintending design, the blind evolu- 
tion of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress 
. of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final 
causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching 
aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, 
the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of 
evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensi- 



268 GENEEAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 

ty of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary 
hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fear- 
fully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, " having no 
hope and without God in the world,"— all this is a vision to 
dizzy and appal ; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a pro- 
found mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution. 

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewilder- 
ing fact ? I can only answer, that either there is no Creator, 
or this living society of men is in a true sense discarded from 
His presence. Did I see a boy of good make and mind, with 
the tokens on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world 
without provision, unable to say whence he came, his birth- 
place or his family connexions, I should conclude that there 
was some mystery connected with his history, and that he was 
one, of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were 
ashamed. Thus only should I be able to account for the con- 
trast between the promise and condition of his being. And so 
I argue about the v/orld ; — if there be a God, since there is a. 
God, the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal 
calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator. 
This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence ; and 
thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin 
becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and 
as the existence of God. 

And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of 
the Creator to interfere in this anarchical condition of things, 
what are we to suppose would be the methods which might be 
necessarily or naturally involved in His object of mercy? 
Since the world is in so abnormal a state, surely it would be 
no surprise to me, if the interposition were of necessity equally 
extraordinary — or what is called miraculous. But that sub- 
ject does not directly come into the scope of my present 
remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve an argument ; and of 
course I am thinking of some means which does not imme- 
diately run into argument. I am rather asking what must be 
the face-to-face antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle 



GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 269 

the fierce energy of passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving 
scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries ? I have no 
intention at all to deny, that truth is the real object of our 
reason, and that, if it does not attain to truth, either the pre- 
miss or the process is in fault ; but T am not speaking of right 
reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen 
man. I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly 
exercised, leads to a belief in Grod, in the immortality of the 
soul, and in a future retribution ; but I am considering it 
actually and historically ; and in this point of view, I do not 
think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a sim- 
ple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, 
can stand against it,- in the long run ; and hence it is that in 
the pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of the 
religious knowledge of former times were all but disappearing 
from those portions of the worfd in which the intellect had 
been active and had had a career. 

, And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the 
Catholic Church things are tending, with far greater rapidity 
than in that old time from the circumstance of the age, to 
atheism in. one shape or other. What a scene, what a pros- 
pect, does the whole of Europe present at this day ! and not 
only Europe, but every government and every civilization 
through the world, which is under the influence of the Euro- 
pean mind ! Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrow- 
ful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary^ 
most attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the 
educated intellect of England, France, and Germany ! Lovers 
of their country and of their race, religious men, external to 
the Catholic Church, have attempted various expedients to 
arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course, and to 
bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of relig- 
ion for the interests of humanity, has been generally acknowl- 
edged: but where was the concrete representative oT things 
invisible, which would have the force and the toughness neces- 
sary to be a breakwater against the deluge ? Three centuries 



270 GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINaSLEY. 

ago the establishment of religion, material, legal, and social, 
was generally adopted as the best expedient for the purpose, 
in those countries which separated from the Catholic Church ; 
and for a long time it was successful ; but now the crevices of 
those establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years 
ago, education was relied upon : ten years ago there was a 
hope that wars would cease forever, under the influence of 
commercial enterprise and the reign of the useful and fine arts ; 
but will any one venture to say that there is any thing any- 
where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us, where- 
by to keep the earth from moving onwards ? 

The judgment which experience passes on establishments 
or education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this 
anarchical world, must be extended even to Scripture, though 
Scripture be divine. Experience proves surely that the Bible 
does not answer a purpose lor which it was never intended. 
It may be accidentally the means of the conversion of individ- 
uals ; but a book, after all, cannot make a stand against the 
wild living intellect of man, and in this day it begins to 
testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the power 
of that universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon 
religious establishments. 

Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere 
in human affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the 
world a knowledge of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be 
proof against the energy of human scepticism, in such a case, 
— I am far from saying that there was no other way, — but 
there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to 
introduce a power into the world, invested with the preroga- 
tive of infallibility in religious matters. Such a provision 
would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of 
withstanding the difiiculty ; it would be an instrument suited 
to the need ; and, when I find that this is the very claim of 
the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no difficulty in admit- 
ting the idea, but there is a fitness in it, which recommends it 
to my mind. And thus I am brought to speak of the Church's 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLET. 271 

infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Crea- 
tor, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that free- 
dom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest 
of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal 
excesses. And let it be observed that, neither here nor in 
what follows, shall I have occasion to speak directly of the re- 
vealed body of truths, but only as they bear upon the defence 
of natural religion. I say, that a power, possessed of infalli- 
bility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a working 
instrument, in the course of human affairs, for smiting hard 
and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive 
intellect : — and in saying this, as in the other things that 
I have to say, it must still be recollected that I am all along 
bearing in mind my main purpose, which is a defence of my- 
self. 

I am defending myself here from a plausible charge 
brought against Catholics, as will be seen better as I proceed. 
The charge is this : — ^that I, as a Catholic, not only make pro- 
fession to hold doctrines which I cannot possibly believe in my 
heart, but that I also believe in the existence of a power on 
earth, which at its own will imposes upon men any new set 
of credenda^ when it pleases, by a claim to infallibility ; in 
consequence, that my own thoughts are not my own property ; 
that I cannot tell that to-morrow I may not have to give up 
what I hold to-day, and that the necessary effect of such a con- 
dition of mind must be a degrading bondage, or a bitter in- 
ward rebellion relieving itself in secret infidelity, or the neces- 
sity of ignoring the whole subject of religion in a sort of dis- 
gust, and of mechanically saying every thing that the Church 
says, and leaving to others the defence of it. As then I have 
above spoken of the relation of my mind towards the Catholic 
Creed, so now I shall speak of the attitude which it takes up 
in the view of the Church's infallibility. 

And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must 
be an emphatic protest against the existing state of mankind. 
Man had rebelled against his Maker. It was this that caused 



272 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

the divine interposition : and the first act of the divinely- 
accredited messenger must be to proclaim it. The Church 
must denounce rebellion as of all possible evils the greatest. 
She must have no terms with it ; if she would be true to her 
Master, she must ban and anathematize it. This is the mean- 
ing of a statement which has furnished matter for one of those 
special accusations to which I am at present replying : I have, 
however, no fault at all to confess in regard to it ; I have noth- 
ing to withdraw, and in consequence I here deliberately repeat 
it. I said, " The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun 
and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for 
all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest 
agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I 
will not say should be lost, but should commit one single 
venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one 
poor farthing without excuse." I think the principle here 
enunciated to be the mere preamble in the formal credentials 
of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin 
with a " Whereas.'' It is because of the intensity of the evil 
which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist 
has been provided against it ; and the initial act of that 
divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver her chal- 
lenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a 
meaning to her position in the world, and an interpretation to 
her whole course of teaching and action. 

In like manner she has ever put forth, with most energetic 
distinctness, those other great elementary truths, which either 
are an explanation of her mission or give a character to her 
work. She does not teach that human nature is irreclaim- 
able, else wherefore should she be sent? not that it is to be 
shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, purified, and re- 
stored ; not that it is a mere mass of evil, but that it has the 
promise of great things, and even now has a virtue and a 
praise proper to itself. But in the next place she knows and 
she preaches that such a restoration, as she aims at effecting 
in it, must be brought about, not simply through any outward 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 273 

provision of preaching and teacliing, even though it be her 
own, but from a certain inward spiritual power or grace im- 
parted directly from above, and which is in her keeping. She 
has it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery, but 
not simply by raising it upon its own level, but by lifting it up 
to a higher level than its own. She recognizes in it real 
moral excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it free 
from earth except by exalting it towards heaven. It was for 
this end that a renovating grace was put into her hands, and 
therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from the rea- 
sonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to 
insist, that all true conversion must begin with the first 
springs of thought, and to teach that each individual man 
must be in his own person one whole and perfect temple of 
God, while he is also one of the living stones which build up 
a visible religious community. And thus the distinctions be- 
tween nature and grace, and between outward and inward 
religion, become two further articles in what I have called the 
preamble of her divine commission. 

■^ Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and perti- 
naciously inflicts upon mankind ; as to such she observes no 
half-measures, no economical reserve, no delicacy or prudence. 
"Ye must be born again," is the simple, direct form of words 
which she uses after her Divine Master ; " your whole nature 
must be re-born, your passions, and your affections, and your 
aims, and your conscience, and your will, must all be bathed 
in a new element, and reconsecrated to your Maker, and the 
last, not the least, your intellect." It was for repeating these 
points of her teaching in my owti way, that certain passages 
of one of my Volumes have been brought into the general ac- 
cusation which has been made against my religious opinions. 
The writer has said that I was demented if I believed, and un- 
principled if I did not believe, in my statement that a lazy, 
ragged, filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste, sober, 
cheerful, and religious, had a prospect of heaven which was 
absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman, or lawyer, or 
12* 



274 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

noble, be he ever so just, upriglit, generous, honourable and 
conscientious, unless he had also some portion of the divine 
Christian grace ; yet I should have thought myself defended 
from criticism by the words which our Lord used to the chief 
priests, " The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of 
God before you." And I was subjected again to the same al- 
ternative of imputations, for having ventured to say that con- 
sent to an unchaste wish was indefinitely more heinous than 
any lie viewed apart from its causes, its motives, and its con* 
sequences : though a lie, viewed under the limitation of these 
conditions, is a random utterance, an almost outward act, not 
directly from the heart, however disgraceful it may be, whereas 
we have the express words of our Lord to the doctrine that 
" whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed 
adultery with her already in his heart." On the strength of 
these texts I have surely as much right to believe in these doc- 
trines as to believe in the doctrine of original sin, or that there 
is a supernatural revelation, or that a Divine Person suffered, 
or that punishment is eternal. 

Passing now from what I have called the preamble of that 
grant of power, with which the Church is invested, to that 
power itself. Infallibility, I make two brief remarks : on the 
one hand, I am not here determining any thing about the essen- 
tial seat of that power, because that is a question doctrinal, 
not historical and practical ; nor, on the other hand, am I ex- 
tending the direct subject-matter, over which that power has 
jurisdiction, beyond religious opinion :— and now as to the 
power itself. 

This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the 
giant evil which has called for it. It claims, when brought 
into exercise in the legitimate manner, for otherwise of course 
it is but dormant, to have for itself a sure guidance into the 
very meaning of every portion of the Divine Message in detail, 
which was committed by our Lord to His Apostles. It claims 
to know its own limits, and to decide what it can determine 
absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have 



GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLET. 275 

a hold upon statements not directly religious, so far as this, to 
determine whether they indirectly relate to religion, and, 
according to its own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether 
or not, in a particular case, they are consistent with revealed 
truth. It claims to decide magisterially, whether infallibly or 
not, that such and such statements are or are not prejudicial 
to the Apostolical dejoositum of faith, in their spirit or in their 
consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid them 
accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on any mat- 
ters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own ij)se dixit 
it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inoppor- 
tune. It claims that whatever may be the judgment of Catho- 
lics upon such acts, these acts should be received by them with 
those outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, 
which Englishmen, for instance, pay to the presence of their sover- 
eign, without public criticism on them, as being in their matter 
inexpedient, or in their manner violent or harsh. And lastly, 
it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual punishment, 
of cutting off from the ordinary channels of the divine life, 
and of simply excommunicating, those who refuse to submit 
themselves to its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility 
lodged in the Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as 
clothed and surrounded by the appendages of its high sover- 
eignty: it is, to repeat what I said above, a supereminent 
prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and master a 
giant evil. 

And now, having thus described it, I profess my own ab- 
solute submission to its claim. I believe- the whole revealed 
dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles 
to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I re- 
ceive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom 
it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like 
manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end 
of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received 
traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those 
new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, 



2Y6 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of 
the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself 
to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, 
through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiv- 
ing the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground 
come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, 
I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages. Catholic 
inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself 
into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology 
of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, 
such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas ; and 
I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy 
of thought thus committed to us for these latter days. 

All this being considered to be a profession ex anirao^ as 
on my own part, so also on the part of the Catholic body, as 
far as I know it, it will at first sight be said that the restless 
intellect of our common humanity is utterly weighed down to 
the repression of all independent effort and action whatever, 
so that, if this is to be the mode of bringing it into order, it is 
brought into order only to be destroyed. But this is far from 
the result, far from what I conceived to be the intention of 
that high Providence who has provided a great remedy for a 
great evil, — far from borne out by the history of the conflict 
between Infallibility and Reason in the past, and the prospect 
of it in the future. The energy of the human intellect '^ does 
from opposition grow ; " it thrives and is joyous, with a tough 
elastic strength, under the terrible blows of the divinely- 
fashioned weapon, and is never so much itself as when it has 
lately been overthrown. It is the custom with Protestant 
writers to consider that, whereas there are two great principles 
in action in the history of religion, Authority and Private 
Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to themselves, 
and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent 
oppression of Authority. But this is not so ; it is the vast 
Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for 
both combatants in that awful, never-dying duel. It is neces- 



GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 277 

sary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large operations 
and its history, that the warfare should b e incessantly car- 
ried on. Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into 
act by an intense and varied operation -of the Reason, from 
within and without, and provokes again a reaction of reason 
against it ; and, as in a civil polity the State exists and 
endures by means of the rivalry and collision, the encroach- 
ments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner 
Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious ab- 
solutism, but it presents a continuous picture of Authority 
and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating 
as the ebb and flow of the tide; — ^it is a vast assemblage of 
human beings with wilful intellects and wild passions, brought 
together into one by the beauty and majesty of a superhuman 
power — into what may be called a large reformatory or training- 
school, not to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but for 
the melting, refining, and moulding, as in some moral factory, 
by an incessant, noisy process (if I may proceed to another 
metaphor), of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, 
so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes. 

St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical power is 
given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be 
no better account of the Infallibility of the Church. It is a 
supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its 
object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or 
vigour of human thought in religious speculation, but to resist 
and control its extravagance. What have been its great works ? 
All of them in the distinct province of theology : — to put down 
Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism, Manichseism, Luther- 
anism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in 
the past ; — and now as to the securities which are given us 
that so it ever will act in time to come. 

First, Infallibility cannot act outside of a definite circle of 
thought, and it must in all its decisions, or definitions^ as they 
are called, profess to be keeping within it. The great truths 
of the moral law, of natural religion, and of Apostolical faith, 



278 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 

are both its boundary and its foundation. It must not go be- 
yond them, and it must ever appeal to them. Both its subject- 
matter, and its articles in that subject-matter, are fixed. Thus, 
in illustration, it does not extend to statements, however sound 
and evident, which are mere logical conclusions from the Arti- 
cles of the Apostolic Dejoositum ; again, it can pronounce noth- 
ing about the persons of heretics, whose works fall within its 
legitimate province. It must ever profess to be guided by 
Scripture and by tradition. It must refer to the particular 
Apostolic truth which it is enforcing, or (what is called) de- 
fining. Nothing, then, can be presented to me, in time to 
come, as part of the faith, but what I ought already to have 
received, and have not actually received, (if not) merely be- 
cause it has not been told me. Nothing can be imposed upon 
me different in kind from what I hold already, — much less 
contrary to it. The new truth which is promulgated, if it is 
to be called new, must be at least homogeneous, cognate, im- 
plicit, viewed relatively to the old truth. It must be what I 
may even have guessed, or wished, to be included in the Apos- 
tolic revelation ; and at least it will be of such a character, that 
my thoughts readily concur in it or coalesce with it, as soon as 
I hear it. Perhaps I and others actually have always believed 
it, and the only question which is now decided in my behalf, is 
that I am henceforth to believe that I have only been holding 
what the Apostles held before me. 

Let me take the doctrine which Protestants consider our 
greatest difficulty, that of the Immaculate Conception. Here 
I entreat the reader to recollect my main drift, which is this. 
I have no difficulty in receiving it : if J have no difficulty, why 
may not another have no difficulty also ? why may not a hun- 
dred ? a thousand ? Now I am sure that Catholics in general 
have not any intellectual difficulty at aU on the subject of the 
Immaculate Conception ; and that there is no reason why they 
should. Priests have no difficulty. You tell me that they 
ought to have a difficulty ; — but they have not. Be large- 
minded enough to believe, that men may reason and feel very 



GENERAL .AJTSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 279 

differently from yourselves ; how is it that men fall, when left 
to themselves, into such various forms of religion, except that 
there are various types of mind among them, very distinct from 
each other ! From my testimony then about myself, if you 
believe it, judge of others also who are Catholics : we do not 
find the difficulties which you do in the doctrines which we 
hold ; we have no intellectual difficulty in that in particular, 
which you call a novelty of this day. We priests need not be 
hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in the Immac- 
ulate Conception. To that large class of minds, who believe 
in Christianity, after our manner, — in the particular temper, 
spirit, and light (whatever word is used) in which Catholics 
believe it, — -ihere is no burden at all in holding that the Blessed 
Virgin was conceived without original sin ; indeed, it is a sim- 
ple fact to say, that Catholics have not come to believe it be- 
cause it is defined, but it was defined because they believed it. 
So far from the definition in 1854 being a tyrannical inflic- 
tion on the Catholic world, it was received everywhere on its 
promulgation with the greatest enthusiasm. It was in conse- 
quence of the unanimous petition, presented from all parts to 
the Holy See, in behalf of a declaration that the doctrine' was 
Apostolic, that it was declared so to be. I never heard of one 
Catholic having difficulties in receiving it, whose faith on other 
grounds was not already suspicious. Of course there were 
grave and good men, who were made anxious by the doubt 
whether it could be proved Apostolical either by Scripture or 
tradition, and who accordingly, though believing it themselves, 
did not see how it could be defined by authority ; but this is 
another matter. The point in question is, whether the doc- 
trine is a burden. I believe it to be none. So far from it 
being so, I sincerely think that St. Bernard and St. Thomas, 
who scrupled at it in their day, had they lived into this, would 
have rejoiced to accept it for its own sake. Their difficulty, as 
I view it, consisted in matters of words, ideas, and arguments. 
They thought the doctrine inconsistent with other doctrines ; 
and those who defended it in that age had not that precision in 



280 GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

their view of it, which has been given to it by means of the 
long controversy of the centuries which followed. And hence 
the difference of opinion, and the controversy. 

Now the instance which I have been taking suggests an- 
other remark ; the number of those (so called) new doctrines 
will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to promulgate 
even one of them. Such is about the length of time through 
which the preparation has been carried on for the definition 
of the Immaculate Conception. This of course is an extra- 
ordinary case ; but it is difficult to say what is ordinary, con- 
sidering how few are the formal occasions on which the voice 
of Infallibility has been solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope 
in Ecumenical Council that we look, as to the normal seat of 
Infallibility : now there have been only eighteen such Councils 
since Christianity was, — an average of one to a century, — and 
of these Councils some passed no doctrinal decree at all, others 
were employed on only one, and many of them were concern- 
ed with only elementary points of the Creed. The Council of 
Trent embraced a large field of doctrine certainly ; but I should 
apply to its Canons a remark contained in that University Ser- 
mon of mine, which has been so ignorantly criticized in the 
Pamphlet which has led to my writing ; — I there have said 
that the various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repe- 
titions in various shapes of one and the same idea ; and in like 
manner, the Tridentine Decrees are not isolated from each 
other, but are occupied in bringing out in detail, by a number 
of separate declarations, as if into bodily form, a few necessary 
truths. I should make the same remark on the various Theses 
condemned by Popes, and on their dogmatic decisions gen- 
erally. I acknowledge that at first sight they seem from their 
number to be a greater burden to the faith of individuals than 
are the Canons of Councils ; still I do not believe in matter of 
fact that they are so at all, and I give this reason for it : — it 
is not that a Catholic, layman or priest, is indifferent to the 
subject, or, from a sort of recklessness, will accept any thing 
that is placed before him, or is willing, like a lawyer, to speak 



GENERAL ANSWEK TO MK. EINOSLEY. 281 

according to his brief, but that in such condemnations the Holy 
See is engaged, for the most part, in repudiating one or two 
great lines of error, such as Lutheranism or Jansenism, prin- 
cipally ethical not doctrinal, which are foreign to the Catholic 
mind, and that it is expressing what any good Catholic, of fair 
abilities, though unlearned, would say himself, from common 
and sound sense, if the matter could be put before him. 

Now I will go on in fairness to say what I think is the 
great trial to the Reason, when confronted with that august 
prerogative of the Catholic Church, of which I have been 
speaking. I enlarged just now upon the concrete shape and 
circumstances, under which pure infallible authority presents 
itself to the Catholic. That authority has the prerogative of 
an indirect jurisdiction on subject-matters which lie beyond its 
own proper limits, and it most reasonably has such a jurisdic- 
tion. It could not act in its own province, unless it had a right 
to act out of it. It could not properly defend religious truth, 
without claiming for it what may be called its pomoeria ; or, 
to take another illustration, without acting as we act, as a na- 
tion, in claiming as our own, not only the land on which W6 
live, but what are called British waters. The Catholic Church 
claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious questions, but 
to animadvert on opinions in secular matters which bear upon 
religion, on matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of 
history, and it demands our submission to her claim. It 
claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to forbid dis- 
cussions. In all this it does not so much speak doctrinally, as 
enforce measures of discipline. It must of course be obeyed 
without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly 
recede from its own injunctions. In such cases the question 
of faith does not come in : for what is matter of faith is true 
for all times, and never can be unsaid. Nor does it at all fol- 
low, because there is a gift of infallibility in the Catholic 
Church, that therefore the power in possession of it is in all 
its proceedings infallible. " O, it is excellent," says the poet, 
" to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to use it like a 



282 GENEEAL Al^SWEE TO ME. KmGSLET. 

giant." I think history supplies us with instances in the 
Church, where legitimate power has been harshly used. To 
make such admission is no more than saying that the divine 
treasure, in the words of the Apostle, is "in earthen vessels ; " 
nor does it follow that the substance of the acts of the ruling 
power is not right and expedient, because its manner may have 
been faulty. Such high authorities act by means of instru- 
ments ; we know how such instruments claim for themselves 
the name of their principals, who thus get the credit of faults 
which really are not theirs. But granting all this to an extent 
greater than can with any show of reason be imputed to 
the ruling power in the Church, what is there in this want of 
prudence or moderation more than can be urged with far great- 
er justice, against Protestant communities and institutions? 
What is there in it to make us hypocrites, if it has not that ef- 
fect upon Protestants ? We are called upon, not to profess any 
thing, but to submit and be silent. Such injunctions, as I 
have supposed, are laid merely upon our actions, not upon our 
thoughts. How, for instance, does it tend to make a man a 
hypocrite, to be forbidden to publish a libel? his thoughts are 
as free as before : authoritative prohibitions may tease and ir- 
ritate, but they have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of 
reason. 

So much at first sight ; but I will go on to say further, 
that, in spite of all that the most hostile critic may say upon 
the encroachments or severities of high ecclesiastics, in .times 
past, in the use of their power, I think that the event has 
shown, after all, that they were mainly in the right, and that 
those whom they were hard upon mainly in the wrong. I 
love, for instance, the name of Origen : I will not listen to the 
notion that so great a soul was lost ; but I am quite sure that, 
in the contest between his doctrine and his followers and ec- 
clesiastical power, his opponents were right, and he was wrong. 
Yet who can speak with patience of his enemy and the enemy 
of St. John Chrysostom, that Theophilus, bishop of Alexan- 
dria? who can admire or revere Pope Vigilius? And here 



GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLET. 283 

another consideration presents itself to my thoughts. In read- 
ing ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be 
forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error of what 
afterwards became heresy was the urging forward some truth 
against the prohibition of authority at an unseasonable time. 
There is a time for every thing, and many a man desires a 
reformation of an abuse, or the fuller development of a doc- 
trine, or the adoption of a particular policy, but forgets to ask 
himself whether the right time for it is come ; and, knowing 
that there is no one who will do any thing towards it in his 
own lifetime unless he does it himself, he will not listen to the 
voice of authority, and spoils a good work in his own century, 
that another man, as yet unborn, may not bring it happily to 
perfection in the next. He may seem to the world to be noth- 
ing else than a bold champion for the truth and a martyr to 
free opinion, when he is just one of those persons whom the 
competent authority ought to silence, and, though the case may 
not fall within that subject-matter in which it is infallible, or 
the formal conditions of the exercise of that gift may be want- 
ing, it is clearly the duty of authority to act vigorously in the 
case. Yet that act will go down to posterity as an instance 
of a tyrannical interference with private judgment, and of the 
silencing of a reformer, and of a base love of corruption or 
error ; and it will show still less to advantage, if the ruling 
power happens in its proceedings to act with any defect of 
prudence or consideration. And all those who take the part 
of that ruling authority will be considered as time-servers, or 
indifferent to the cause of uprightness and truth ; while, on 
the other hand, the said authority may be supported by a 
violent ultra party, which exalts opinions into dogmas, and 
has it principally at heart to destroy every school of thought 
but its own. 

Such a state of things may be provoking and discouraging 
at the time, in the case of two classes of persons ; of moderate 
men who wish to make differences in religious opinion as little 
as they fairly can be made ; and of such as keenly perceive, 



284 GENEEAL AKSWER TO ME. KINGSLET. 

and are honestly eager to remedy, existing evils, — evils, of 
which divines in this or that foreign country know nothing at all, 
and which even at home it is not every one who has the means 
of estimating. This is a state of things both of past time and 
of the present. We live in a wonderful age ; the enlargement 
of the circle of secular knowledge just now is simply a bewil- 
derment, and the more so, because it has the promise of con- 
tinuing, and that with greater rapidity, and more signal re- 
sults. Now these discoveries, certain or probable, have in 
matter of fact an indirect bearing upon religious opinions, and 
the question arises how are the respective claims of revelation 
and of natural science to be adjusted. Few minds in earnest 
can remain at ease without some sort of rational grounds for 
their religious belief ; to reconcile theory and fact is almost an 
instinct of the mind. When then a flood of facts, ascertained 
or suspected, comes pouring in upon us, with a multitude of 
others in prospect, all believers in revelation, be they Catholic 
or not, are roused to consider their bearing upon themselves, 
both for the honour of God, and from tenderness for those 
many souls who, in consequence of the confident tone of the 
schools of secular knowledge, are in danger of being led away 
into a bottomless liberalism of thought. 

I am not going to criticize here that vast body of men, in 
the mass, who at this time would profess to be liberals in re- 
ligion ; and who look towards the discoveries of the age, cer- 
tain or in progress, as their informants, direct or indirect, as to 
what they shall think about the unseen and the future. The 
Liberalism which gives a colour to society now, is very differ- 
ent from that character of thought which bore the name thirty 
or forty years ago. It is scarcely now a party ; it is the edu- 
cated lay world. When I was young, I knew the world first 
as giving name to a periodical, set up by Lord Byron and 
others. Now, as then, I have no sympathy with the philoso- 
phy of Byron. Afterwards, Liberalism was the badge of a 
theological school, of a dry and repulsive character, not very 
dangerous in itself, though dangerous as opening the door to 



GENEEAL ANSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 285 

evils which it did not itself either anticipate or comprehend. 
Now it is nothing else than that deep, plausible scepticism, of 
which I spoke above, as being the development of human 
reason, as practically exercised by the natural man. 

The Liberal religionists of this day are a very mixed body, 
and therefore I am not intending to speak against them. 
There may be, and doubtless is, in the hearts of some or many 
of them a real antipathy or anger against revealed truth, 
which it is distressing to think of. Again ; in many men of 
science or literature there may be an animosity arising from 
almost a personal feeling ; it being a matter of party, a point 
of honour, the excitement of a game, or a consequence of 
soreness or annoyance occasioned by the acrimony or narrow- 
ness of apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or 
that Scripture is untrustworthy. Many scientific and literary 
men, on the other hand, go on, I am confident, in a straight- 
forward impartial way, in their own province and on their 
own line of thought, without any disturbance from religious 
opinion in themselves, or any wish at all to give pain to oth- 
ers by the result of their investigations. It would ill become 
me, as if I were afraid of truth of any kind, to blame those 
who pursue secular facts, by means of the reason which God 
has given them, to their logical conclusions : or to be angry 
with science because religion is bound to take cognizance of 
its teaching. But putting these particular classes of men 
aside, as having no special call on the sympathy of the Catho- 
lic, of course he does most deeply enter into the feelings of a 
fourth and large class of men, in the educated portions of so- 
ciety, of religious and sincere minds, who are simply per- 
plexed, — frightened or rendered desperate, as the case may 
be, — by the utter confusion into which late discoveries or spec- 
ulations have thrown their most elementary ideas of religion. 
Who does not feel for such men ? who can have one unkind 
thought of them? I take up St. Augustine's beautiful words, 
" Illi in vos sgeviant," &c. Let them be fierce with you who 
have no experience of tlie difficulty with which error is dis- 



286 GENEEAL ANSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

criminated from truth, and the way of life is found amid the 
illusions of the world. How many Catholics have in their 
thoughts followed such men, many of them so good, so true, 
so noble 1 how often has the wish risen in their hearts that 
some one from among themselves should come forward as the 
champion of revealed truth against its opponents ! Various 
persons. Catholic and Protestant, have asked me to do so my- 
self ; but I had several strong difficulties in the way. One of 
the greatest is this, that at the moment it is so difficult to say 
precisely what it is that is to be encountered and overthrown. 
I am far from denying that scientific knowledge is really grow- 
ing, but it is by fits and starts ; hypotheses rise and fall ; it is 
difficult to anticipate which will keep their ground, and what 
the state of knowledge in relation to them will be from year 
to year. In this condition of things, it has seemed to me to 
be very undignified for a Catholic to commit himself to the 
work of chasing what might turn out to be phantoms, and in 
behalf of some special objections, to be ingenious in devising 
a theory, which, before it was completed, might have to give 
place to some theory newer still, from the fact that those 
former objections had already come to nought under the up- 
rising of others. It seemed to be a time of all others, in 
which Christians had a call to be patient, in which they had 
no other way of helping those who were alarmed, than that 
of exhorting them to have a little faith and fortitude, and to 
"beware," as the poet says, "of dangerous steps." This 
seemed so clear to me, the more I thought, as to make me 
surmise, that, if I attempted what had so little promise in it, 
I should find that the highest Catholic authority was against 
the attempt, and that I should have spent my time and my 
thought in doing what either it would be imprudent to bring 
before the public at all, or what, did I do so, would only com- 
plicate matters further which were already complicated more 
than enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority, 
as fulfilling my expectation ; I interpret them as tying the 
hands of a controversialist, such as I should be, and teaching 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 287 

US that true wisdom, which Moses inculcated on his people, 
when the Egyptians were pursuing them, " Fear ye not, stand 
still ; the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your 
peace." And so far from finding a difiiculty in obeying in this 
case, I have cause to be thankful and to rejoice to have so 
clear a direction in a matter of difficulty. 

But if we would ascertain with correctness the real course 
of a principle, we must look at it at a certain distance, and as 
history represents it to us. Nothing carried on by human in- 
struments, but has its irregularities, and affords ground for 
criticism, when minutely scrutinized in matters of detail. I 
have been speaking of that aspect of the action of an infalli- 
ble authority, which is most open to invidious criticism from 
those who view it from without ; I have tried to be fair, in es- 
timating what can be said to its disadvantage, as witnessed in 
the Catholic Church, and now I wish its adversaries to be 
equally fair in their judgment upon its historical character. 
Can, then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason, 
be said in fact to have destroyed the energy of the intellect 
in the Catholic Church ? Let it be observed, I have not to 
speak of any conflict which ecclesiastical authority has had 
with science, for there has been none such, because the secu- 
lar sciences, as they now exist, are a novelty in the world, and 
there has been no time yet for a history of relations between 
theology and these new methods of knowledge, and indeed the 
Church may be said to have kept clear of them, as is proved 
by the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here " exceptio pro- 
bat regulam : " for it is the one stock argument. Again, I 
have not to speak of any relations of the Church to the new 
sciences, because my simple question is whether the assump- 
tion of infallibility by the proper authority is adapted to make 
m.e a hypocrite, and till that authority passes decrees on pure 
physical subjects and calls on me to subscribe them (which it 
never will do, because it has not the power) , it has no ten- 
dency by its acts to interfere with my private judgment on 
those points. The. simple question is whether authority has 



288 GENEEAL ANSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

SO acted upon the reason of individuals, that they can have no 
opinion of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish 
superstition or secret rebellion of heart ; and I think the whole 
history of theology puts an absolute negative upon such a sup- 
position. It is hardly necessary to argue out so plain a point. 
It is individuals, and not the Holy See, who have taken the 
initiative, and given the lead to Catholic minds, in theological 
inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged against 
the Church of Rome, that it has originated nothing, and has 
only served as a sort of remora or break in the development 
of doctrine. And it is an objection, which I embrace as a 
truth ; for such I conceive to be the main purpose of its ex- 
traordinary gift. It is said, and truly, that the Church of 
Rome possessed no great mind in the whole period of persecu- 
tion. Afterwards for a long while, it has not a single doctor 
to show ; St. Leo, its first, is the teacher of one point of doc- 
trine ; St. Gregory, who stands at the very extremity of the 
first age of the Church, has no place in dogma or philosophy. 
The great luminary of the western world is, as we know, St. 
Augustine ; he, no infallible teacher, has formed the intellect 
of Europe ; indeed to the African Church generally we must 
look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas. The case is 
the same as regards the Ecumenical Councils. Authority in 
its most imposing exhibition, grave bishops, laden with the 
traditions and rivalries of particular nations or places, have 
been guided in their decisions by the commanding genius of 
individuals, sometimes young and of inferior rank. Not that 
uninspired intellect overruled the superhuman gift which was 
committed to the Council, which would be a self-contradictory 
assertion, but that in that process of inquiry and deliberation, 
which ended in an infallible enunciation, individual reason was 
paramount. Thus the writings of St. Bonaventura, and, what 
is more to the point, the address of a Priest and theologian, 
Salmeron, at Trent, had a critical effect on some of the defi- 
nitions of dogmas. - Parallel to this is the influence, so well 
known, of a young deacon, St. Athanasius, with the 318 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 289 

Fathers at Nicaea. In like manner we hear of the influence 
of St. Anselm at Bari, and St. Thomas at Lyons. In the 
latter cases the influence might be partly moral, but in the 
former it was that of a discursive knowledge of ecclesiastical 
writers, a scientific acquaintance with theology, and a force of 
thought in the treatment of doctrine. 

There are of course intellectual habits which theology does 
. not tend to form, as for instance the experimental, and again 
the philosophical : but that is because it is theology, not because 
of the gift of infallibility. But, as far as this goes, I think it 
could be shown that physical science on the other hand, or 
mathematical, affords but an imperfect training for the intel- 
lect. I do not see then how any objection about the narrow- 
ness of theology comes into our question, which simply is, 
whether the belief in an Infallible authority destroys the inde- 
pendence of the mind ; and I consider that the whole history 
of the Church, and especially the history of the theological 
schools, gives a negative to the accusation. There never was 
a time when the intellect of the educated class was more active, 
or rather more restless, than in the middle ages. And then 
again all through Church history from the first, how slow is 
authority in interfering ! Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor 
in some local school, hazards a proposition, and a controversy 
ensues. It smoulders or burns in one place, no one inter- 
posing ; Rome simply lets it alone. Then it comes before a 
Bishop ; or some priest, or some professor in some other seat 
of learning takes it up ; and then there is a second stage of it. 
Then it comes before a University, and it may be condemned 
by the theological faculty. So the controversy proceeds year 
after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal, perhaps, is 
next made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome ; and then 
at last after a long while it comes before the supreme power. 
Meanwhile, the question has been ventilated and turned over 
and over again, and viewed on every side of it, and authority 
is called upon to pronounce a decision, which has already been 
arrived at by reason. But even then, perhaps the supreme 
13 



290 GENERAL ANSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the 
point for years ; or so generally and vaguely, that the whole 
controversy has to be gone through again, before it is ulti- 
mately determined. It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, 
such as this, tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, 
of the individual theologian or contraversialist. Many a man 
has ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful for his day, but 
he wishes to have them discussed. He is willing or rather 
would be thankful to give them up, if they can be proved to be 
erroneous or dangerous, and by means of controversy he ob- 
tains his end. He is answered, and he yields ; or he finds that 
he is considered safe. He would not dare to do this, if he 
knew an authority, which was supreme and final, was watch- 
ing every word he said, and made signs of assent or dissent to 
each sentence, as he uttered it. Then, indeed, he would be 
fighting, as the Persian soldiers, under the lash, and the free- 
dom of his intellect might truly be said to be beaten out of him. 
But this has not been so : — I do not mean to say that, when 
controversies run high, in schools or even in small portions of 
the Church, an interposition may not rightly take place ; and 
again, questions may be of that urgent nature, that an appeal 
must, as a matter of duty, be made at once to the highest 
authority in the Church ; but, if we look into the history of 
controversy, we shall find, I think, the general run of things 
to be such as I have represented it. Zosimus treated Pelagius 
and Coelestius with extreme forbearance ; St. Gregory YII. 
was equally indulgent with Berengarius ; by reason of the very 
power of the Popes they have commonly been slow and moder- 
ate in their use of it. 

And here again is a further shelter for the individual rea- 
son : — the multitude of nations who are in the fold of the 
Church will be found to have acted for its protection, against 
any narrowness, if so, in the various authorities at Rome, 
with whom lies the practical decision of controverted ques- 
tions. How have the Greek traditions been respected and 
provided for in the later Ecumenical Councils, in spite of the 



GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. EXNGSLEY, 291 

countries that held them being in a state of schism ! There 
are important points of doctrine which have been (humanly- 
speaking) exempted from the infallible sentence, by the tender- 
ness with which its instruments, in framing it, have treated 
the opinions of particular places. Then, again, such national 
influences have a providential effect in moderating the bias 
which the local influences of Italy may exert upon the See of 
St. Peter. It stands to reason that, as the Gallican Church 
has in it an element of France, so Rome must have an ele- 
ment of Italy ; and it is no prejudice to the zeal and devotion 
with which we submit ourselves to the Holy See to admit this 
plainly. It seems to me, as I have been saying, that Catho- 
licity is not only one of the notes of the Church, but, accord- 
ing to the divine purposes, one of its securities. I think it 
would be a very serious evil, which Divine Mercy avert ! th^-t 
the Church should be contracted in Europe within the range of 
particular nationalities. It is a great idea to introduce Latin 
civilization into America, and to improve the Catholics there 
by the energy of French Religion ; but I trust that all Euro- 
pean races will have ever a place in the Church, and assuredly 
I think that the loss of the English, not to say the German 
element, in its composition has been a most serious evil. And 
certainly, if there is one consideration more than another 
which should make us English grateful to Pius the Ninth, it is 
that, by giving us a Church of our own, he has prepared the 
way for our own habits of mind, our own manner of reason- 
ing, our own tastes, and our own virtues, finding a place and 
thereby a sanctification, in the Catholic Church. 

There is only one other subject, which I think it necessary 
to introduce here, as bearing upon the vague suspicions which 
are attached in this country to the Catholic Priesthood. It is 
one of which my accuser says much, the charge of reserve 
and economy. He founds it in no slight degree on what I 
have said on the subject in my History of the Arians, and in 
a note upon one of my Sermons in which I refer to it. The 



292 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

principle of Reserve is also advocated by an admirable vv^riter 
in two numbers of the Tracts for the Times. 

Now, as to the Economy itself, I leave the greater part of 
what I have to say to an Appendix. Here I will but say that 
it is founded upon the words of our Lord, " Cast not your 
pearls before swine ; '^ and it was observed by the early Chris- 
tians more or less in their intercourse with their heathen popu- 
lations among whom they lived. In the midst of the abomina- 
ble idolatries and impurities of that fearful time, they could 
not do otherwise. But the rule of the Economy, at least as I 
have explained and recommended it, did not go beyond (1) 
the concealing the truth when w^e could do so without deceit, 
(2) stating it only partially, and (3) representing it under the 
nearest form possible to a learner or inquirer, when he could 
not possibly understand it exactly. I conceive that to draw 
angels with wings is an instance of the third of these economi- 
cal modes ; and to avoid the question, " Do Christians believe 
in a Trinity?" by answering, "They believe in only one 
God," would be an instance of the second. As to the first, it 
is hardly an Economy, but comes under what is called the 
" Disciplina Arcani." The second and third economical 
modes Clement calls lying ;" meaning that a partial truth is in 
some sense a lie, and so also is a representative truth. And 
this, I think, is about the long and the short of the ground of 
the accusation which has been so violently urged against me, 
as being a patron of the Economy. 

Of late years I have come to think, as I believe most 
writers do, that Clement meant more than I have said. I 
used to think he used the word " lie" as an hyperbole, but I 
now believe that he, as other early Fathers, thought that, 
under certain circumstances, it was lawful to tell a lie. This 
doctrine I never maintained, though I used to think, as I do 
now, that the theory of the subject is surrounded with con- 
siderable difficulty ; and it is not strange that I should say so^ 
considering that great English writers simply declare that in 
certain extreme cases, as to save life, honour, or even proper- 



OENEHAL ANSWEE TO ME. KDSTGSLEY. 293 

tj, a lie is kllowable. And tlius I am brought to the direct 
question of truth, and the truthfulness of Catholic priests gen- ' 
erally in their dealings with the world, as bearing on the gene- 
ral question of their honesty, and their internal belief in their 
religious professions. 

It would answer no purpose, and it would be departing 
from the line of writing which I have been observing all 
along, if I entered into any formal discussion on the subject ; 
what I shall do here, as I have done in the foregoing pages, is 
to give my own testimony on the matter in question, and there 
to leave it. Now first I will say, that, when I became a 
Catholic, nothing struck me more at once than the English out- 
spoken manner of the Priests. It was the same at Oscott, at 
Old Hall Green, at Ushaw ; there was nothing of that smooth- 
ness, or mannerism, which is commonly imputed to them, and 
they were more natural and unaffected than many an Angli- 
can clergyman. The many years which have passed since, 
have only confirmed my first impression. I have ever found 
it in the priests of this Diocese ; did I wish to point out a 
straightforward Englishman, I should instance the Bishop, who 
has, to our great benefit, for so many years presided over it. 

And next, I was struck, when I had more opportunity of 
judging of the Priests, by the simple faith in the Catholic 
Creed and system of which they always gave evidence, and 
which they never seemed to feel, in any sense at all, to be a 
burden. And now that I have been in the Church nineteen 
years, I cannot recollect hearing of a single instance in Eng- 
land of an infidel priest. Of course there are men from time 
to time, Avho leave the Catholic Church for another religion, 
but I am speaking of cases when a man keeps a fair outside 
to the world and is a hollow hypocrite to his heart. 

I wonder that the self-devotion of our priests does not 
strike Protestants in this point of view. What do they gain 
by professing a Creed, in which, if my Assailant is to be be- 
lieved, they really do not believe ? What is their reward for 



294 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 

committing themselves to a life of self-restraint and toil, and 
after all to a premature and miserable death ? The Irish fever 
cut off between Liverpool and Leeds thirty priests and more, 
young men in the flower of their days, old men who seemed 
entitled to some quiet time after their long toil. There was a 
bishop cut off in the North ; but what had a man of his ec- 
clesiastical rank to do with the drudgery and danger of sick 
calls, except that Christian faith and charity constrained him ? 
Priests volunteered for the dangerous service. It was the 
same on the first coming of the cholera, that mysterious awe- 
inspiring infliction. If priests did not heartily believe in the 
Creed of the Church, then I will say that the remark of the 
Apostle had its fullest illustration : — " If in this life only we 
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." 
What could support a set of hypocrites in the presence of a 
deadly disorder, one of them following another in long order 
up the forlorn hope, and one after another perishing ? And 
such, I may say, in its substance, is every Mission-Priest's 
life. He is ever ready to sacrifice himself for his people. 
Night and day, sick or well himself, in all weathers, off he is, 
on the news of a sick call. The fact of a parishioner dying 
without the Sacraments through his fault is terrible to him ; 
why terrible, if he has not a deep absolute faith, which he 
acts upon with a free service ? Protestants admire this, when 
they see it ; but they do not seem to see as clearly, that it ex- , 
eludes the very notion of hypocrisy. 

Sometimes, when they reflect upon it, it leads them to re- 
mark on the wonderful discipline of the Catholic priesthood ; 
they say that no Church has so well-ordered a clergy, and that 
in that respect it surpasses their own ; they wish they could 
have such exact discipline among themselves. But is it an 
excellence which can be purchased ? is it a phenomenon which 
depends on nothing else than itself, or is it an effect which has 
a cause? You cannot buy devotion at a price. "It hath 
never been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it 
been seen in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 295 

of Meran, none of these have known its way." What then is 
that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand men act all 
in one v/ay, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule, as if they 
were under some stern military compulsion ? How difficult 
to find an answer, unless you will aHow the obvious one, tliat 
they believe intensely what they profess ! 

I cannot think what it can be, in a day like this, which 
keeps up the prejudice of this Protestant country against us, 
unless it be the vague charges which are drawn from our books 
of Moral Theology ; and with a notice of the work in particular 
which my accuser especially throws in our teeth, I shall in a 
very few words bring these observations to a close. 

St. Alfonso Liguori, it cannot be denied, lays down that 
an equivocation, that is, a play upon words, in which one sense 
is taken by the speaker, and another seng^e intended by him for 
the hearer, is allowable, if there is a just cause, that is, in a 
special case, and may even be confirmed by an oath. I shall 
give my opinion on this point as plainly as any Protestant can 
wish ; and therefore I avow at once that in this department of 
morality, much as I admire the high points of the Italian 
character, I like the English character better ; but, in saying 
so, I am not, as will be seen, saying any thing disrespectful to 
St. Alfonso, who was a lover of truth, and whose intercession 
I trust I shall not lose, though, on the matter under considera- 
tion, I follow other guidance in preference to his. 

Now I make this remark first: — great English authors, 
Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very distinct 
schools of thought, distinctly say, that under certain special 
circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says : " To 
tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, 
of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, 
hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great 
and wise and good men. "Who would not save his father's 
life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or 
tyrants?" Again, Milton says: ''What man in his senses 



296 GENEEAL InSWEE TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

would deny, that there are those whom we have the best 
grounds for considering that we ought to deceive, — as boys, 
madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, 
thieves ? I would ask, by which of the commandments is a 
lie forbidden ? You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie 
does not injure my- neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden 
by this commandment." Paley says : " There are falsehoods, 
which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal." Johnson : 
"The general rule is, that truth should never be violated; 
there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, 
a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone." 

Now, I am not using these instances as an argumentum 
ad hominem ; but this is the use to which I put them : — 

1. First, I have set down the distinct statements of Tay- 
lor, Milton, Paley, and Johnson ; now, would any one give 
ever so little weight to these statements, in forming a real 
estimate of the veracity of the writers, if they now were alive ? 
Were a man, who is so fierce with St. Alfonso, to meet Paley 
or Johnson to-morrow in society, would he look upon him as 
a liar, a knave, as dishonest and untrustworthy? I am sure 
he would not. Why then does he not de£il out the same meas- 
ure to Catholic priests ? If a copy of Scavini, which speaks 
of equivocation as being in a just cause allowable, be found in 
a student's room at Oscott, not Scavini himself, but the un- 
happy student, who has what a Protestant calls a bad book in 
his possession, is judged for life unworthy of credit. Are all 
Protestant text-books at the University immaculate ? Is it 
necessary to take for gospel every word of Aristotle's Ethics, 
or every assertion of Hey or Burnett on the Articles ? Are 
text-books the ultimate authority, or are they manuals in the 
hands of a lecturer, and the groundwork of his remarks ? But, 
again, let^us suppose, not the case of a student, or of a profes- 
sor, but of Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso ; now here again 
I ask, if you would not scruple in holding Paley for an honest 
man, in spite of his defence of lying, why do you scruple at 
St. Alfonso ? I am perfectly sure that you would not scruple 



GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 29Y 

atPaley personally; you might not agree witli him, but you 
would call him a bold thinker : then why should St. Alfonso's 
person be odious to you, as well as his doctrine ? 

Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley ; 
because, you would say, when he advocated lying, he was 
taking special cases. You would have no fear of a man who 
you knew had shot a burglar dead in his own house, because 
you know you are not a burglar : so you would not think that 
Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because in the case 
of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser evil to tell a lie. 
Then why do you show such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, 
who speaks of certain special cases in which an equivocation 
in a penitent cannot be visited by his confessor as if it were a 
sin ? for this is the exact point of the question. 

But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy Taylor, 
when no practical matter is before' him, lay down a maxim 
about the lawfulness of lying, which will startle most readers ? 
The reason is plain. He is forming a theory of morals, and 
he must treat every question in turn as it comes. And this is 
just what St. Alfonso or Scavini is doing. You only try 
your hand yourself at a treatise on the rules of morality, and 
you will see how difficult the work is. What is the definition 
of a lie ? Can you give a better than that it is a sin against 
justice, as Taylor and Paley consider it? but, if so, how can 
it be a sin at all, if your neighbour is not injured ? If you do 
not like this definition, take another ; and then, by means of 
that, perhaps you will be defending St. Alfonso's equivocation. 
However, this is what I insist upon ; that St. Alfonso, as Paley, 
is considering the different portions of a large subject, and he 
must, on the subject of lying, give his judgment, though on 
that subject it is difficult to form any judgment which is satis- 
factory. 

But further still : you must not suppose that a philosopher 

or moralist uses in his own case the licence which his theory 

itself would allow him. A man in his own person is guided 

by his own conscience ; but in drawing out a system of rules 

13* 



298 GENEEAL AKSWEK TO MR. KIKGSLEY. 

he is obliged to go by logic, and follow the exact deduction of 
conclusion from conclusion, and be sure that the whole system 
is coherent and one. You hear of even immoral or irreligious 
books being written by men of decent character ; there is a 
late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are 
not at all the picture of the man. A priest may write a trea- 
tise which would be called really lax on the subject of lying, 
which might come under the condemnation of the Holy See, 
as some treatises on that score have been condemned, and yet 
in his own person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious 
from St.' Alfonso's life, that he, who has the repute of being so 
lax a moralist, had one of the most scrupulous and anxious 
of consciences himself. Nay, further than this, he was origin- 
ally in the Law, and on one occasion he was betrayed into 
the commission of what seemed like a deceit, though it was an 
accident ; and that was tlie very occasion of his leaving the 
profession and embracing the religious life. 

The account of this remarkable occurrence is told us in his 
Life :— 

" Notwithstanding he had carefully examined over and 
over the details of the process, he was completely mistaken 
regarding the sense of one document, which constituted the 
right of the adverse party. The advocate of the Grand Duke 
perceived the mistake, but he allowed Alfonso to continue his 
eloquent address to the end without interruption ; as soon, 
however, as he had finished, he rose, and said with cutting 
coolness, ' Sir, the case is not exactly what you suppose it to 
be ; if you will review the process, and examine this paper 
attentively, you will find there precisely the contrary of all you 
have advanced.' ' Willingly,' replied Alfonso, without hesitat- 
ing ; ' the decision depends on this question — whether the fief 
were granted under the law of Lombardy, or under the French 
Law.' The paper being examined, it was found that the 
Grand Duke's advocate was in the right. ' Yes,' said Alfonso, 
holding the paper in his hand, ' I am wrong, I have been 
mistaken.' A discovery so unexpected, and the fear of being 



GENEEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 299 

accused of unfair dealing, filled liim with consternation, and 
covered him with confusion, so much so, that every one saw 
his emotion. It was in vain that the President Caravita, who 
loved him, and knew his integrity, tried to console him, by 
telling him that such mistakes were not uncommon, even' 
among the first men at the bar. Alfonso would listen to noth- 
ing, but, overwhelmed with confusion, his head sunk on his 
breast, he said to himself, ' World, I know you now ; courts 
of law, never shall you see me again ! ' And turning his back 
on the assembly, he withdrew to his own house, incessantly 
repeating to himself, 'World, I know you now.' What 
annoyed him most was, that having studied and re-studied the 
process during a whole month, without having discovered this 
important fiaw, he could not understand how it had escaped 
his observation." 

And this is the man who is so flippantly pronounced to be 
a patron of lying. 

But, in truth, a Catholic theologian has objects in view 
which men in general little compass ; he is not thinking of 
himself, but of a multitude of souls, sick, sinful souls, carried 
away by sin, full of evil, and he is trying with all his might to 
rescue them from their miserable state ; and, in order to save 
them from more heinous sins, he tries, to the full extent that 
his conscience will allow him to go, to shut his eyes to such 
sins, as are, though sins, yet lighter in character or degree. 
He knows perfectly well that, if he is as strict as he would wish 
to be, he shall be able to do nothing at all with the run of men ; 
so he is as indulgent with them as ever he can be. Let it not 
be for an instant supposed, that I allow of the maxim of doing 
evil that good may come ; but, keeping clear of this, there is 
a way of winning men from greater sins by winking for the 
time at the less, or at mere improprieties of faults ; and this is 
the key to the difficulty which Catholic books of moral theology 
so often cause to the Protestant. They are intended for the 
Confessor, and Protestants view them as intended for the 
Preacher. 



300 GENERAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

2. And I observe upon Taylor, Milton, and Paley thus : 
What would a Protestant clergyman say to me, if I accused 
him of teaching that a lie was allowable ; and if, when he asked 
for my proof, I said in reply that Taylor and Milton so taught ? 
Why, he would sharply retort, " / am not bound by Taylor or 
Milton ; " and if I went on urging that " Taylor was one of his 
authorities," he would answer that Taylor was a great writer, 
but great writers were not therefore infallible. This is pretty 
much the answer which I make, when I am considered in this 
matter a disciple of St. Alfonso. 

I plainly and positively state, and without any reserve, that 
I do not at all follow this holy and charitable man in this por- 
tion of his teaching. There are various schools of opinion al- 
lowed in the Church : and on this point I follow others. I 
follow Cardinal Gerdil, and Natalis Alexander, nay, St. Augus- 
tine. I will quote one passage from Natalis Alexander : — 
" They certainly lie, who utter the words of an oath, without 
the will to swear or bind themselves : or who make use of 
mental reservations and equivocations in swearing, since they 
signify by words what they have not in mind, contrary to the 
end for which language was instituted, viz., as signs of ideas. 
Or they mean something else than the words signify in them- 
selves and the common custom of speech." And, to take an 
instance : I do not believe any priest in England would dream 
of saying, " My friend is not here ; " meaning, " He is not in 
my pocket or under my shoe." Nor should any consideration 
make me say so myself. I do not think St. Alfonso would in 
his own case have said so ; and he would have been as much 
shocked at Taylor and Paley, as Protestants are at him. 

And now, if Protestants wish to know what our real teach- 
ing is, as on other subjects, so on that of lying, let them look, 
not at tour books of casuistry, but at our catechisms. Works on 
pathology do not give the best insight into the form and the 
harmony of the human frame ; and, as it is with the body, so 
is it with the mind. The Catechism of the Council of Trent 



GENEEAL AI^SWEE' TO ME. KINGSLEY. 301 

was drawn up for the express purpose of providing preachers 
with subjects for their sermons ; and as my whole work has 
been a defence of myself, I may here say that I rarely preach 
a Sermon, but I go to this beautiful and complete Catechism to 
get both my matter and my doctrine. There we find the fol- 
lowing notices about the duty of veracity : — 

" 'Thou shalt not bear false witness,' &c. : let attention be 
drawn to two laws contained in this commandment : — the one, 
forbidding false witness ; the other bidding, that removing all 
pretence and deceits, we should measure our words and deeds 
by simple truth, as the Apostle admonished the Ephesians of 
that duty in these words : ' Doing truth in charity, let us grow 
in Him through all things.' 

" To deceive by a lie in joke or for the sake of compliment, 
though to no one there accrues loss or gain in consequence, 
nevertheless is altogether unworthy : for thus the Apostle 
admonishes, ' Putting aside lying, speak ye truth.' For 
therein is great danger of lasping into frequent and more 
serious lying, and from lies in joke men gain the habit of lying, 
whence they gain the character of not being truthful. And 
thence again, in order to gain credit to their words, they find 
it necessary to make a practice of swearing. 

" Nothing is more necessary than truth of testimony, in 
those things which we neither know ourselves, nor can al- 
lowably be ignorant of, on which point there is extant that 
maxim of St. Augustine's : Whoso conceals the truth, and 
whoso puts forth a lie, each is guilty ; the one because he is 
not willing to do a service, the other because he has a wish to 
do a mischief. 

" It is lawful at times to be silent about the truth, but out 
of a court of law ; for in court, when a witness is interrogated by 
the judge according to law, the truth is wholly to be brought out. 

"Witnesses, however, must beware, lest, from over-confi- 
dence in their memory, they affirm for certain, what they have 
not verified. 

" In order that the faithful may with more good will avoid 



302 GENEEAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 

the sin of lying, the Parish Priest shall set before them the ex- 
treme misery and turpitude of this wickedness. For, in holy writ, 
the devil is called tlie father of a lie ; for, in that he did not re- 
main in Truth, he is a liar, and the father of a lie. He will 
add, with the.view of ridding men of so great a crime, the evils 
which follow upon lying ; and, whereas they are innumerable, 
he will point out [at least] the sources and the general heads 
of these mischiefs and calamities, viz., 1. How great is 
God's displeasure and how great His hatred of a man who is 
insincere and a liar. 2. What security there is that a man 
Avho is specially hated by Grod may not be visited "by the 
heaviest punishments. 3. "What more unclean and foul, as St. 
James says, than .... that a fountain by the same jet should 
send out sweet water and bitter ? 4. For that tongue, which 
just now praised God, next, as far as in it lies, dishonours Him 
by lying. 5. In consequence, liars are shut out from the pos- 
session of heavenly beatitude. 6. That too is the worst evil 
of lying, that that disease of the mind is generally incurable. 

" Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast extent, 
and touching men generally, that by insincerity and lying faith 
and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human so- 
ciety, and, when they are lost, supreme confusion follows in 
life, so that men seem in nothing to diifer from devils. 

" Lastly, the Parish Priest will set those right who excuse 
their insincerity and allege the example of wise men, who, they 
say, are used to lie for an occasion. He will tell them, what 
is most true, that the wisdom of the flesh is death. He will 
exhort his hearers to trust in God, when they are in difiiculties 
and straits, nor to have recourse to the expedient of a lie. 

" They who throw the blame of their own lie on those who 
have already by a lie deceived them, are to be taught that men 
must not revenge themselves, nor make up for one evil by an- 
other." .... 

There is much more in the Catechism to the same effect, 
and it is of universal obligation ; whereas the decision of a 
particular author in morals need not be accepted by any one. 



GENEEAL AITSWEE TO ME. KIKGSLEY. 303 

To one other authority I appeal on this subject, which com- 
mands from me attention of a special kind, for they are the 
words of a Father. They will serve to bring my work to a 
conclusion. 

" St. Philip," says the Roman Oratorian who wrote his 
Life, " had a particular dislike of affectation both in himself 
and others, in speaking, in dressing, or in any thing else. 

" He avoided all ceremony which savoured of worldly com- 
pliment, and always showed himself a great stickler for Chris- 
tian simplicity in every thing ; so that, when he had to deal 
with men of worldly prudence, he did not very readily accom- 
modate himself to them. 

" And he avoided, as much as possible, having any thing 
to do with two-faced persons, who did not go simply and 
straightforwardly to work in their transactions. 

" As for liars J he could not endure them, and he was con- 
tinually reminding his spiritual children, to avoid them as they 
would a pestilence.'^ 

These are the principles on which I have acted before I 
was a Catholic ; these are the principles which, I trust, will be 
my stay and guidance to the end. 

I have closed this history of myself with St. Philip's name 
upon St. Philip's feast-day ; and, having done so, to whom can 
I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affection and grati- 
tude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers of this 
House, the Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, Ambrose St. 
John, Henry Austin Mills, Henry Bittleston, Edward 
Caswall, William Paine Neville, and Henry Ignatius 
Dudley Ryder ? who have been so faithful to me ; who have 
been so sensitive of my needs ; who have been so indulgent 
to my failings ; who have carried me through so many trials ; 
who have grudged no sacrifice, if I asked for it ; who have 
been so cheerful under discouragements of my causing ; who 
have done so many good works, and let me have the credit 
of them ; — with whom I have lived so long, with whom I hope 
to die. 



304 GEN"EEAL ANSWER TO ME. KINGSLEY. 

And to you especially, dear Ambrose St. John ; whom 
God gave me, when He took every one else away ; who are 
the link between my old life and my new ; who have now for 
twenty-one years been so devoted to me, so patient, so zealous, 
so tender ; who have let me lean so hard upon you ; who have 
watched me so narrowly ; who have never thought of yourself, 
if I was in question. 

And in you I gather up and bear in memory those familiar 
affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were 
given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and 
relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, 
who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attach- 
ment in times long past ; and also those many younger men, 
whether I knew them or not, who have never been disloyal to 
me byword or by deed ; and of all these, thus various in their 
relations to me, those more especially who have since joined 
the Catholic Church. 

And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a 
hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, 
and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at 
length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and 
under One Shepherd. 

May 26, 1864. 
In Festo Corp. Christ. 



ANSWER IN DETAIL TO MR. KINGSLEY'S ACCUSATIONS. 

In proceeding now, according to tlie engagement with 
which I entered upon my undertaking, to examine in detail 
the Pamphlet which has been written against me, I am very- 
sorry to be obliged to say, that it is as slovenly and random 
and futile in its definite charges, as it is iniquitous in its 
method of disputation. And now I proceed to show this with- 
out any delay ; and shall consider in order, 

1. My Sermon on the Apostolical Christian 

2. My Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence. 

3. The Anglican Church. 

4. The Lives of the English Saints. 

5. Ecclesiastical Miracles. 

6. Popular Religion. 

7. The Economy. 

8. Lying and Equivocation. 

I. 

My Sermon on " The Apostolical Christian" being the Idth of 
" Sermons on Subjects of the Day." 

This writer says, ''What Dr. Newman means by Chris- 
tians ... he has not left in doubt ; " and then, quoting a 
passage from this Sermon which speaks of "the humble monk 
and the holy nun " being " Christians after the very pattern 



306 APPENDIX. 

given us in Scripture," he observes, " This is his definition of 
Christians." — p. 9. 

This is not the case. I have neither given a definition, 
nor implied one, nor intended one ; nor could I either now or 
in 1843-4, or at any time, allow of the particular defini- 
tion he ascribes to me. As if all Christians must be monks, 
or nuns ! 

What I have said is, that monks and nuns are patterns of 
Christian perfection ; and that Scripture itself supplies us with 
this pattern. Who can deny this ? Who is bold enough to 
say that St. John Baptist, who, I suppose, is a Scripture 
Character, is not a pattern-monk ; and that Mary, who " sat 
at our Lord's feet," was not a pattern-nun? and "Anna too, 
who served God with fastings and prayers night and day?" 
Again, what is meant but this by St. Paul's saying, "It is 
good for a man not to touch a woman ? " and, when speaking 
of the father or guardian of a young girl, " He that giveth her 
in marriage doeth well ; but he that giveth her not in mar- 
riage doeth better ? " And what does St. John mean but to 
praise virginity, when he says of the hundred forty and four 
thousand on Mount Sion, " These are they which were not 
defiled with women, for they are virgins ? " And what else 
did our Lord mean, when He said, " There be eunuchs who 
have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's 
sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it ? " 

He ought to know his logic better : I have said that 
" monks and nuns find their pattern in Scripture : " he adds, 
Therefore I hold all Christians are monks and nuns. 

This is Blot one. 

Now then for Blot two. 

" Monks and nuns the only perfect Christians . . . what 
more?" — p. 9. 

A second fault in logic. I said no more than that monks 
and nuns were perfect Christians : he adds. Therefore " monks 
and nuns are the only perfect Christians." Monks and nuns 



APPENDIX. 307 

are not the only perfect Christians ; I never thought so or said 
so, now or at any other time. 

P. 42. " In the Sermon . . . monks and nuns are 
spoken of as the only true Bible Christians." This, again, is 
not the ease. What I said is, that " monks and nuns are 
Bible Christians : " it does not follow, nor did I mean, that 
"all Bible Christians are monks and nuns." Bad logic again. 
Blot three. 



II. 

3fy Sermon on " Wisdom and Innocenee^^ being the 20th of 
" Sermons on Subjects of the Day." 

This writer says, p. 8, about my Sermon 20, " By the 
world appears to be signified, especially, the Protestant public 
of these realms." 

He also asks, p. 14, " Why was it preached? ... to in- 
sinuate, that the admiring young gentlemen, who listened to 
him, stood to their fellow-countrymen in the relation of the 
early Christians to the heathen Romans ? or that Queen Vic- 
toria's Government was to the Church of England, what Nero's 
or Dioclesian's was to the Church of Rome ? It may have 
been so." 

May or may not, it wasn't. He insinuates, what not 
even with his little finger does he attempt to prove. Blot 
four. 

He asserts, p. 9, that I said in the Sermon in question, 
that " Sacramental Confession and the celibacy of the clergy 
are ' notes ' of the Church." And, just before, he puts the 
word " notes " in inverted commas, as if it was mine. That 
is, he garbles. It is not mine. 'Blot five. 

He says that I " define what I mean by the Church in two 
' notes ' of her character." I do not define, or dream of defining. 



308 APPENDIX. 

1. He says that I teach that the celibacy of the clergy en- 
ters into the definition of the Church. I do no such thing ; 
that is the blunt truth. Define the Church by the celibacy of 
the clergy ! why, let him read 1 Tim. iii. ; there he will find 
that bishops and deacons are spoken of as married. How, 
then, could I be the dolt to say or imply that the celibacy of 
the clergy was a part of the definition of the Church ? Blot six. 

And again in p. 42, "In the Sermon a celibate clergy is 
made a note of the Church." Thus the untruth is repeated. 
Blot seven, 

2. And now for Blot eight. jSTeither did I say that " Sa- 
cramental confession" was a " note of the Church." Nor is it. 
Nor could I with any cogency have brought this as an argu- 
ment against' the Church of England, for the Church of Eng- 
land has retained Confession, nay. Sacramental Confession. 
No fair man can read the form of Absolution in the Anglican 
Prayer in the Visitation of the Sick, without seeing that that 
Church does sanction and provide for Confession and Absolu- 
tion. If that form does not contain the profession of a grave 
Sacramental act, words have no meaning. The form is almost 
in the words of the Roman form ; and, by the time that this 
Clergyman has succeeded in explaining it away, he will have 
also got skill enough to explain away the Roman form ; and 
if he did but handle my words with that latitude with which 
he interprets his own formularies, he would prove that, instead 
of my being superstitious and frantic, I was the most Protest- 
ant of preachers and the most latitudinarian of thinkers. It 
would be charity in him, in his reading of my words, to use 
some of that power of evasion, of which he shows himself such 
a master in his dealing with his own Prayer Book. Yet he 
has the assurance at p. 14 to ask, " Why was the Sermon 
preached? to insinuate that a Church which had sacramental 
confession and a celibate clergy was the only true Church ? " 

"Why?" I will tell the reader, wliy ; and with this view 



APPENDIX. 309 

will speak, first of the contents of the Sermon, then of its sub- 
ject, then of its circumstances. 

1. It was one of the last six Sermons which I wrote when 
I was an Anglican. It was one of the five Sermons I preached 
in St. Mary's between Christmas and Easter, 1843, the year 
when I gave up my Living. The MS. of the Sermon is de- 
stroyed ; but I believe, and my memory too bears me out, as 
far as it goes, that the sentence in question about Celibacy and 
Confession ivas not preached at all. The Volume, in which 
this Sermon is found, was published after that I had given up 
St. Mary's, when I had no call on me to restrain the expres- 
sion of any thing which I might hold : and I state an important 
fact about it in the Advertisement, which this truth-loving 
writer suppresses. Blot nine. 

My words, which stared him in the face, are as follows : — 
" In preparing [these Sermons] for publication, a few words 
and sentences have in several places been added, which will be 
found to express more of private or personal opinion, than it 
was expedient to introduce into the instruction delivered in 
Church to a parochial Congregation. Such introduction, how- 
ever, seems unobjectionable in the case of compositions, which 
are detached from the sacred place and service to which they 
once belonged, and submitted to the reason and judgment of 
the general reader." 

This Volume of Sermons then cannot be criticized at all 
as preachments ; they are essays ; essays of a man who, at the 
time of publishing them, was 7iot a preacher. Such passages 
as that in question, are just the very ones which I added upon 
my publishing them. I always was on my guard in the pulpit 
of saying any thing which looked towards Rome ; and there- 
fore all his rhetoric about my " disciples," " admiring young 
gentlemen who listened to me," " fanatic and hot-headed 
young men, who hung upon my every word," becomes simple 
rubbish. 

I have more to say on this point. This writer says, p. 14, 
" I know that men used to suspect Dr. Newman, — I have 



310 APPENDIX. 

been inclined to do so myself, — of ivriting a whole Sermon, not 
for the saJce of the text or of the matter, but for the sake of one 
simple passing hint, — one phrase, one epithet." Can there be 
a plainer testimony borne to the practical character of my 
Sermons at St. Mary's than this gratuitous insinuation ? Many 
a preacher of Tractarian doctrine has been accused of not 
letting his parishioners alone, and of teasing them with his 
private theological notions. You would gather from the 
general tone of this Writer that that was my way. Every one 
who was in the habit of hearing me, knows that it wasn't. 
This Writer either knows nothing about it, and then he ought 
to be silent ; or he does know, and then he ought to speak the 
truth. Others spread the same report twenty years ago as he 
does now, and the world believed that my Sermons at St. 
Mary's were full of red-hot Tractarianism. Then strangers 
came to hear me preach, and were astonished at their own 
disappointment. I recollect the wife of a great prelate from a 
distance coming to hear me, and then expressing her surprise 
to find that I preached nothing but a plain humdrum Sermon. 
I recollect how, when on the Sunday before Commemoration 
one year, a number of strangers came to hear me, and I 
preached in my usual way, residents in Oxford, of high posi- 
tion, were loud in their satisfaction that on a great occasion, I 
had made a simple failure, for after all there was nothing in 
the Sermon to hear. Well, but they were not going to let me 
off, for all my common-sense view of duty. Accordingly, they 
got up the charitable theory which this Writer revives. They 
said that there was a double purpose in those plain addresses 
of mine, and my Sermons were never so artful as when they 
seemed common -place ; that there were sentences which re- 
deemed their apparent simplicity and quietness. So they 
watched during the delivery of a Sermon, which to them was 
too practical to be useful, for the concealed point of it, which 
they could at least imagine, if they could not discover. " Men 
used to suspect Dr. Newman," he says, " of writing a whole 
Sermon, not for the sake of the text or of the matter, but for the 



APPENDIX. 311 

sake of . . . one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow, 
which, as he swejot magnificently past on the stream of his calm 
eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences, save those 
unseen, he delivered unheeded," &c., p. 14. To all appear- 
ance, he says, I was " unconscious of all presences ;" so this 
kind Writer supplies the true interpretation of this unconscious- 
ness. He is not able to deny that " the whole Sermon " had 
the appearance of being ''for the sake of the text and matter ; " 
therefore he suggests that perhaps it wasn't. And then he 
emptily talks of the " magnificent sweep of my eloquence," 
and my " oratoric power." Did he forget that the Sermon 
of which he thus speaks can be read by others as well as him ? 
Now, the sentences are as short as Aristotle's, and as grave 
as Bishop Butler's. It is written almost in the condensed style 
of Tract 90. Eloquence there is none. I put this down as 
Blot ten. 

2. And now as to the subject of the Sermon. The series 
of which the Volume consists are such Sermons as are, more 
or less, exceptions to the rule which I ordinarily observed, as 
to the subjects which I introduced into the pulpit of St. Mary's. 
They are not purely ethical or doctrinal. They were for the 
most part caused by circumstances of the day or of the time, 
and they belong to various years. One was written in 1832, 
two in 1836, two in 1838, five in 1840, five in 1841, four in 
1842, seven in 1843. Many of them are engaged on one sub- 
ject, viz., in viewing the Church in its relation to the world. 
By the world was meant, not simply those multitudes which 
were not in the Church, but the existing body of human society, 
whether in the Church or not, whether Catholics, Protestants, 
Greeks, or Mahometans, theists or idolaters, as being ruled 
by principles, maxims, and instincts of their own, that is, of 
an unregenerate nature, whatever their supernatural privileges 
might be, greater or less, according to their form of religion. 
This view of the relation of the Church to the world as taken 
apart from questions of ecclesiastical politics, as they may be 



312 APPENDIX. 

called, is often brought out in my Sermons. Two occur to 
me at once ; No. 3 of my Plain Sermons, which, was written 
in 1829, and No. 15 of my Third Volume, written in 1835. 
Then, on the other hand, by Church I meant, — in common 
with all writers connected with the Tract Movement, what- 
ever their shades of opinion, and with the whole body of Eng- 
lish divines, except those of the Puritan or Evangelical School, 
— ^the whole of Christendom, from the Apostles' time till now, 
whatever their later divisions into Latin, Greek, and Anglican. 
I have explained this view of the subject above at pp. 114 — 
116 of this Volume. When then I speak, in the particular 
Sermon before us, of the members, or the rulers, or the action 
of " the Church," I mean neither the Latin, nor the Greek, 
nor the English, taken by itself, but of the whole Church as 
one body : of Italy as one with England, of the Saxon or Nor- 
man as one with the' Caroline Church. This was specially 
the one Church, and the points in which one branch or one 
period differed from another were not and could not be Notes 
of the Church, because Notes necessarily belonged to the whole 
of the Church everywhere and always. 

This being my doctrine as to the relation of the Church to 
the world, I laid down in the Sermon three principles concern- 
ing it, and there left the matter. The first is, that Divine 
Wisdom had framed for its action, laws which man, if left to 
himself, would have antecedently pronounced to be the worst 
possible for its success, and which in all ages have been called 
by the world, as they were in the Apostles' days, " foolishness ; " 
that man ever relies on physical and material force, and on 
carnal inducements, — as Mahomet with his sword and his 
houris, or indeed almost as that theory of religion, called, 
since the Sermon was written, " muscular Christianity ; " but 
that our Lord, on the contrary, has substituted meekness 
for haughtiness, passiveness for violence, and innocence for 
craft : and that the event has shown the high wisdom of such 
an economy, for it has brought to light a set of natural laws, 
unknown before, by which the seeming paradox that weakness 



APPENDIX. 313 

should be stronger than might, and simplicity than worldly 
policy, is readily explained. 

Secondly, I said that men of the world, judging by the 
event, and not recognizing the secret causes of the success, viz., 
a higher order of natural laws, — natural, though their source 
and action were supernatural (for " the meek inherit the 
earth," by means of a meekness which comes from above), — 
these men, I say, concluded, that the success which they wit- 
nessed must arise from some evil secret which the world had 
not mastered, — ^by means of magic, as they said in the first 
ages, by cunning as they say now. And accordingly they 
thought that the humility and inofFensiveness of Christians, or 
of Churchmen, was a mere pretence and blind to cover the 
real causes of that success, which Christians could explain and 
would not ; and that they were simply hypocrites. 

Thirdly, I suggested that shrewd ecclesiastics, who knew 
very well that there was neither magic nor craft in the matter, 
and, from their intimate acquaintance with what actually went 
on within the Church, discerned what were the real causes of 
its success, were of course under the temptation of substituting 
reason for conscience, and, instead of simply obeying the 
command, were led to do good that good might come, that 
is, to act in order to their success, and not from a motive of 
faith. Some, I said, did yield to the temptation more or less, 
and their motives became mixed ; and in this way the world 
in a more subtle shape has got into the Church ; and hence it , 
has come to pass, that, looking at its history from first to 
last, we cannot possibly draw the line between good and evil 
there, and say either that every thing is to be defended, or 
some things to be condemned. I expressed the difficulty which 
I supposed to be inherent in the Church, in the following 
words. I said, '■'Priestcraft has ever been considered the badge, and 
its imputation is a kind of Note of the Church ; and in part 
indeed truly, because the presence of powerful enemies, and 
the sense of their own weakness, has sometimes tempted Chris- 
tians to the abuse, instead of the use of Christian wisdom, to be 
14 



314 APPENDIX. 

wise witJiout being harmless ; but partly, nay, for the most part, 
not truly, but slanderously, and merely because the world call- 
ed their wisdom craft, when it was found to be a match for its 
its own numbers and power." This passage he has partly 
garbled, partly omitted. Blot eleven. 

Such is the substance of the Sermon : and as to the main 
drift of it, it was this ; that I was, there and elsewhere, scruti- 
nizing the course of the Church as a whole, as if philo- 
sophically, as an historical phenomenon, and observing the 
laws on which it was conducted. Hence the Sermon, or 
Essay as it more truly is, is written in a dry and unimpas- 
sioned way : it show^s as little of human warmth of feeling, I 
repeat, as a Sermon of Bishop Butler's. Yet, under that calm 
exterior there was a deep and keen sensitiveness, as I shall 
now proceed to show. 

3. If I mistake not, it was written with a secret thought 
about myself. Every one preaches according to his frame of 
mind, at the time of preaching. One heaviness especially 
oppressed me at that season, which this Writer, twenty years 
afterwards, has set himself with a good will to renew : it arose 
from the sense of the base calumnies which were thrown upon 
me on all sides. In this trouble of mind I gained, while I re- 
viewed the history of the Church, at once an argument and a 
consolation. My argument was this : if I, who knew my own 
innocence, w^as so blackened by party prejudice, perhaps those 
high rulers and those servants of the Church, in the many ages 
which intervened between the early Nicene times and the pres- 
ent, who were laden with such grievous accusations, were in- 
nocent also ; and this reflection served to make me tender tow- 
ards those great names of the past, to whom weakness or 
crimes were imputed, and reconciled me to difliculties in eccle- 
siastical proceedings, which there were no means now of prop- 
erly explaining. And the sympathy thus excited for them, 
reacted on myself, and I found comfort in being able to put 
myself under the shadow of those who had suifered as I was 



APPENDIX. 315 

suffering, and who seemed to promise me their recompense, 
since I had a fellowship in their trial. In a letter to my 
Bishop at the time of Tract 90, part of which I have quoted, 
I said that I have ever tried to " keep innocency ; " and now 
two years had passed since then, and men were louder and 
louder in heaping on me the very charges, which this Writer 
repeats out of my Sermon, of " fraud and cunning," " crafti- 
ness and deceitfulness," " double-dealing," " priest-craft," of 
being " mysterious, dark, subtle, designing," when I was all 
the time conscious to myself, in my degree, and after my meas- 
ure, of " sobriety, self-restraint, and control of word and feel- 
ing," I had had experience how, my past success had been 
imputed to "secret management ;" and how, when I had 
shown surprise at that success, that surprise again was imputed 
to " deceit ; " and how my honest heartfelt submission to 
authority had been called, as it was called in a colonial Bish- 
op's charge, " mystic humility ; " and how my silence was 
called an " hypocrisy ; " and my faithfulness to my clerical 
engagements a secret correspondence with the enemy. And I 
found a way of destroying my sensitiveness about these things 
which jarred upon my sense of justice, and otherwise would 
have been too much for me, by the contemplation of a large 
law of the Divine Dispensation, and found myself more and 
more able to bear in my own person a present trial, of which 
in my past writings I had expressed an anticipation. 

For thus feeling and thus speaking this Writer has the 
charitableness and the decency to call me " Mawworm." " I 
found him telling Christians," he says, " that they wUl always 
seem ' artificial,' and ' wanting in openness and manliness ; ' 
that they will always be a ' mystery' to the world, and that 
the world will always think them rogues ; and bidding them 
glory in what the world (that is, the rest of their fellow- 
countrymen) disown, and say with Mawworm, ' I like to be 
despised.' .... How was I to know that the preacher . . . 
was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the plain practical 
result of a sermon like this delivered before fanatic and hot- 



316 APPENDIX. 

headed young men who hung upon his every word ? " — p. 17. 
Hot-headed young men ! why, man, you are writing a Ro- 
mance. You think the scene is Alexandria or the Spanish 
main, where you may let your imagination play revel to the 
extent of inveracity. It is good luck for me that the scene of 
my labours was not at Moscow or Damascus. Then I might 
be one of your ecclesiastical Saints, of which I sometimes 
hear in conversation, but with whom, I am glad to say, I have 
no personal acquaintance. Then you might ascribe to me a 
more deadly craft than mere quibbling and lying ; in Spain I 
should have been an Inquisitor, with my rack in the back- 
ground : I should have had a concealed dagger in Sicily ; at 
Venice I should have ^rew^ed poison ; in Turkey I should have 
been the Sheik-el-Islam with my bowstring ; in Khorasson I 
should have been a veiled Prophet. "• Fanatic young men ! " 
Why he is writing out the list of a Dramatis Personae ; 
" guards, conspirators, populace," and the like. He thinks 
that I was ever moving about with a train of Capulets at my 
heels ! " Hot-headed fanatics, who hung on my every word ! " 
If he had taken to write a history, and not a play, he would 
have easily found out, as I have said, that from 1841 I had 
severed myself from the younger generation of Oxford, that 
Dr. Pusey and I had then closed our theological meetings at his 
house, that I had brought my own weekly evening parties to 
an end, that I preached only by fits and starts at St. Mary's, 
so that the attendance of young men was broken up, that in 
those very weeks from Christmas till over Easter, during 
which this Sermon was preached, I was but five times in the 
pulpit there. He would have known that it was written at a 
time when I was shunned rather than sought, when I had 
gre^t sacrifices in anticipation, when I was thinking much of 
myself; that I was ruthlessly tearing myself away from my 
own followers, and that, in the musings of that Sermon, I was 
at the very utmost only delivering a testimony in my behalf 
for time to come, not sowing my rhetoric broadcast for the 
chance of present sympathy. Blot twelve. 



APPENDIX. 317 

I proceed : he says at p. 15, "I found him actually using of 
such [prelates], (and, as I thought, of himself and his party* 
likewise,) the words ' They yield outwardly ; to assent inward- 
ly were to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and 
double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, not more 
than they may.' " This too is a proof of my duplicity ! Let 
this writer go wdth some one else, just a little further than he 
has gone with me ; and let him get into a court of law for 
libel ; and let him be convicted ; and let him still fancy that 
his libel, though a libel, was true, and let us then see whether 
he will not in such a case " yield outwardly," without assent- 
ing internally ; and then again whether we should please him, 
if we called him " deceitful and double-dealing," because " he 
did as miftch as he could, not more than he ought to do." But 
Tract 90 will supply a real illustration of what I meant. I 
yielded to the Bishops in outward act, viz., in not defending 
the Tract, and in closing the Series ; but, not only did I not 
assent inwardly to any condemnation of it, but I opposed my- 
self to the proposition of a condemnation on the part of author- 
ity. Yet I was then by the public called " deceitful and 
double-dealing," as this Writer calls me now, " because I did 
as much as I felt I could do, and not more than I felt I could 
honestly do." Many were the publications of the day and the 
private letters which accused me of shuffling, because I closed 
the Series of Tracts, yet kept the Tracts on sale, as if I ought 
to comply not only with what my Bishop asked, but with what 
he did not ask, and perhaps did not wish. However, such 
teaching, according to this Writer, was likely to make young 
men suspect, that truth was not a virtue for its own sake, but 
only for the sake of " the spread of Catholic opinions," and the 
•' salvation of their own souls;" and that " cunning was the 
weapon which heaven had allowed to them to defend them- 
selves against the persecuting Protestant public." — p. 16. Blot 
thirteen. 

And now I draw attention to another point. He says at 



318 APPENDIX. 

p. 15, " How was I to know that the preacher . . . did not 
foresee, that [fanatic and hot-headed young men] would think 
that they obeyed him, by becoming affected, artificial, sly, 
shifty, ready for concealments and equivocations?^^ "How 
should he know ! " What ! I suppose that we are to think 
every man a knave till he is proved not to be such. Know ! 
had he no friend to tell him whether I was " affected" or 
" artificial" myself? Could he not have done better than im- 
pute eqivocations to me, at a time when I was in no sense 
answerable for the ampJiibohgia of the Roman casuists ? Has 
he a single fact which belongs to me personally or by profes- 
sion to couple my name with equivocation in 1843? "How 
should he know" that I was not sly, smooth, artificial, non- 
natural ! he should know by that common meanly frankness, if 
he had it, by which we put confidence in others, till they are 
proved to have forfeited it ; he should know it by my own 
words in that very Sermon, in which I say it is best to be 
natural, and that reserve is at best but an unpleasant necessity. 
I say, " I do not deny that there is something very engaging 
in a frank and unpretending manner ; some persons have it 
naore than others ; in some persons it is a great grace. But it 
must be recollected that I am speaking of times of persecution 
and oppression to Christians, such as the text foretells ; and 
then surely frankness will become nothing else than indigna- 
tion at the oppressor, and vehement speech, if it is permitted, 
Accordingly, as persons have deep feelings^ so they wiU find 
the necessity of self-control, lest they should say what they 
ought not." He omits these words. I call, then, this base in- 
sinuation that I taught equivocation. Blot the fourteenth. 

Lastly he sums up thus : " If [Dr. Newman] would . . . 
persist (as in his Sermon) in dealing with matters dark, 
offensive, doubtful, sometimes actually forbidden, at least ac- 
cording to the notions of the great majority of English Church- 
men ; if he would always do so in a tentative, paltering way, 
seldom or never letting the world know how much he believed, 



APPENDIX. 319 

how far lie intended to go ; if, in a word, his method of teach- 
ing was a suspicious one, what wonder if the minds of men 
were filled with suspicions of him?" — p. 17. 

Now first he is speaking of my Sermons ; where, then, is 
his proof that in my Sermons I dealt in matters dark, offensive, 
doubtful, actually forbidden ? he has said nothing in proof that 
I have not been able flatly to deny. 

" Forbidden according to the notions of the great majority 
of English Churchmen." I should like to know what opinions, 
beyond those which relate to the Creed, are held by the " ma- 
jority of English Churchmen : " — are his own ? is it not per- 
fectly well known, that " the great majority" think of him and 
his views with a feeling which I will not describe, because it is 
not necessary for my argument ? So far is certain, that he has 
not the majority with him. 

"' In a tentative, paltering way." The word " paltering" 
I reject, as vague ; as to " tentative," he must show that I was 
tentative in my Sermons ; and he has eight volumes to look 
through. As to the ninth, my University Sermons, of course 
I was " tentative ; " but not because " I would seldom or never 
let the world know how much I believed, or how far I intended 
to go ; " but because in deep subjects, which had not been fully 
investigated, I said as much as I believed, and about as far as 
I saw I could go ; and a man cannot do more ; and I account 
no man to be a philosopher who attempts to do more. How 
long am I to have the office of merely negativing assertions 
which are but supported by former assertions, in which John 
is ever helping Tom, and the elephant stands upon the tortoise ? 
This is '^\oi fifteen. 



III. 

The Anglican Church. 

This "Writer says : — " If there is, as there is, a strong dis- 
trust of certain Catholics, it is restricted to the proselytizing 
priests among them ; and especially to those, who, like Dr. 



320 APPENDIX. 

Newman, have turaed round upon their mother Church (I 
had almost said their mother country) with contumely and 
slander." — p. 18. 

No one has a right to make a charge, without at least an 
attempt to prove what he says ; but this Writer is consistent 
with himself. From the time that he first spoke of me in the 
Magazine, when has he ever even professed to give evidence 
of any sort for any one of his charges, from his own sense of 
propriety, and without being challenged on the point ? After 
the sentence which I have been quoting, and another like it, 
he coolly passes on to Tract 90 ! Blot sixteen ; but I shall 
dwell on it awhile, for its own sake. 

Now I have been bringing out my mind in this Volume on 
every subject which has come before me ; and therefore I am 
bound to state plainly what I feel and have felt, since I was a 
Catholic, about the Anglican Church. I said, in a former 
page, that, on my conversion, I was not conscious of any 
change in me of thought or feeling, as regards matters of doc- 
trine ; this, however, was not the case as regards some matters 
of fact, and, unwilling as I am to give offence to religious 
Anglicans, I am bound to confess that I felt a great change in 
my view of the Church of England. I cannot tell how soon 
there came on me, — ^but very soon, — an extreme astonishment 
that I had ever imagined it to be a portion of the Catholic 
Church. For the first time, I looked at it from without, and 
(as I should myself say) saw it as it was. Forthwith I could 
not get myself to see in it any thing else, than what I had so 
long fearfully suspected, from as far back as 1836, — a mere 
national institution. As if my eyes were suddenly opened, so 
I saw it — spontaneously, apart from any definite act of reason 
or any argument ; and so I have seen it ever since. I suppose, 
the main cause of this lay in the contrast which was presented 
to me by the Catholic Church. Then I recognized at once a 
reality which was quite a new thing with me. Then I was 
sensible that I was not making for myself a Church by an 



APPENDIX. 321 

effort of thought ; I needed not to make an act of faith in her ; 
I had not painfully to force myself into a position, but my mind 
fell back upon itself in relaxation and in peace, and I gazed 
at her almost passively as a great objective fact. I looked at 
her ; — at her rites, her ceremonial, and her precepts ; and I 
said, " This is a religion ; " and then, when I looked back upon 
the poor Anglican Church, for which I had laboured so hard, 
. and upon all that appertained to it, and thought of our various 
attempts to dress it up doctrinally and esthetically, it seemed 
to me to be the veriest of nonentities. Vanity of vanities, all 
is vanity ! How can I make a record of what passed within 
me, without seeming to be satirical? But I speak plain, seri- 
ous words. As people call me credulous for acknowledging 
Catholic claims, so they call me satirical for disowning Angli- 
can pretensions ; to them it is credulity, to them it is satire ; 
but it is not so in me. What they think exaggeration, I think 
truth. I am not speaking of the Anglican Church in any dis- 
dain, though to them I seem contemptuous. To them of course 
it is " Aut Cassar aut nuUus," but not to me. It may be a 
great creation, though it be not divine, and this is how I judge 
of it. Men, who abjure the divine right of kings, would be 
very indignant, if on that account they were considered dis- 
loyal. And so I recognize in the Anglican Church a time- 
honoured institution, of noble historical memories, a monu- 
ment of ancient wisdom, a momentous arm of political strength, 
a great national organ, a source of vast popular advantage, and, 
to a certain point, a witness and teacher of religious truth. I 
do not think that, if what I have written about it since I have 
been a Catholic, be equitably considered as a whole, I shall be 
found to have taken any other view than this ; but that it is 
something sacred, that it is an oracle of revealed doctrine, that 
it can claim a share in St. Ignatius or St. Cyprian, that it can 
take the rank, contest the teaching, and stop the path of the 
Church of St. Peter, that it can call itself " the Bride of the 
Lamb," this is the view of it which simply disappeared from 
my mind on my conversion, and which it would be almost a 
14* 



322 APPENDIX. 

miracle to reproduce. " I went by, and lo ! it was gone ; I 
sought it, but its place could nowhere be found ; " and northing 
can bring it back to me. And, as to its possession of an epis- 
copal succession from the time of the Apostles, well, it may 
have it, and, if the Holy See ever so decided, I will believe it, 
as being the decision of a higher judgment than my own ; but, 
for myself, I must have St. Philip's gift, who saw the sacer- 
dotal character on the forehead of a gaily-attired youngster, 
before I can by my own wit acquiesce in it, for antiquarian 
arguments are altogether unequal to the urgency of visible 
facts. Why is it that I must pain dear friends by saying so, 
and kindle a sort of resentment against me in the kindest of 
hearts ? but I must, though to do it be not only a grief to me, 
but most impolitic at the moment. Any how, this is my mind ; 
and, if to have it, if to have betrayed it, before now, involun- 
tarily by my words or my deeds, if on a fitting occasion, as 
now, to have avowed it, if all this be a proof of the justice of 
the charge brought against me of having " turned round upon 
my Mother-Church with contumely and slander," in this sense, 
but in no other sense, do I plead guilty to it without a word in 
extenuation. 

In no other sense surely : the Church of England has been 
the instrument of Providence in conferring great benefits on 
me ; had I been born in Dissent, perhaps I should never have 
been baptized ; had I been born an English Presbyterian, per- 
haps I should never have known our Lord's divinity ; had I 
not come to Oxford, perhaps I never should have heard of the 
visible Church, or of Tradition, or other Catholic doctrines. 
And as 1 have received so much good from the Anglican Es- 
tablishment itself, can I have the heart, or rather the want of 
charity, considering that it does for so many others, what it 
has done for me, to wish to see it overthrown? I have no 
such wish while it is what it is, and while we are so small a 
body. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of the many 
congregations to which it ministers, I will do nothing against 
it. While Catholics are so weak in England, it is doing our 



APPENDIX. 323 

work ; and, though it does us harm in a measure, at present 
the balance is in our favour. What our duty would be at 
another time and in other circumstances, supposing, for in- 
stance, the Establishment lost its dogmatic faith, or at least 
did not preach it, is another matter altogether. In secular 
history we read of hostile nations having long truces, and re- 
newing them from time to time, and that seems to be the posi- 
tion the Catholic Church may fairly take up at present in re- 
lation to the Anglican Establishment. 

Doubtless the National Church has hitherto been a service- 
able breakwater against doctrinal errors, more fundamental 
than its own. How long this will last in the years now before 
us, it is impossible to say, for the Nation drags down its 
Church to its own level ; but still the National Church has 
the same sort of influence over the Nation that a periodical 
has upon the party which it represents, and my own idea of a 
Catholic's fitting attitude towards the National Church in this 
its supreme hour, is that of assisting and sustaining it, if it be 
in our power, in the interest of dogmatic truth. I should 
wish to avoid every thing, except under the direct call of duty, 
which went to weaken its hold upon the public mind, or to un- 
settle its establishment, or to embarrass and lessen its mainten- 
ance of those great Christian and Catholic principles and doc- 
trines which it has up to this time successfully preached. 

I say, " except under the call of duty ; " and this excep- 
tion, I am obliged to admit, is not a slight one ; it is one 
which necessarily places a bar to any closer relation between 
it and ourselves, than that of an armed truce. For, in the 
first place, it stands to reason that even a volume, such as this 
has been, exerts an influence adverse to the Establishment, — 
at least in the case of many minds ; and this I cannot avoid, 
though I have sincerely attempted to keep as wide of contro- 
versy in the course of it, as ever I could. And next I cannot 
deny, what must be ever a very sore point with Anglicans, 
that, if any Anglican comes to me after careful thought and 
prayer, and with deliberate purpose, says, " I believe in the 



324. APPENDIX. 

Holy Catholic Church, and that your Church and yours alone 
is it, and I demand admittance into it," it would be the great- 
est of sins in me to reject such a man, as being a distinct con- 
travention of our Lord's maxim, " Freely ye have received, 
freely give." 

I have written three volumes which may be considered 
controversial ; Loss and Gain in 1847 ; Lectures on Difficul- 
ties felt by Anglicans in submitting to the Catholic Church in 
1850 ; and Lectures on the present Position of Catholics in 
England in 1851. And though I have neither time nor need 
to go into the matter minutely, a few words will suffice for 
some general account of what has been my object and my 
tone in these works severally. 

Of these three, the Lectures on the " Position of Catho- 
lics " have nothing to do with the Church of England, as such ; 
they are directed against the Protestant or Ultra-Protestant 
Tradition on the subject of Catholicism since the time of 
Queen Elizabeth, in which parties indeed in the Church of 
England have largely participated, but which cannot be con- 
fused with Anglican teaching itself. Much less can that Tra- 
dition be confused with the doctrine of the Laudian or of the 
Tractarian School. I owe nothing to Protestantism ; and I 
spoke against it even when I was an Anglican, as well as in 
these Catholic Lectures. If I spoke in them against the 
Church Established, it was because, and so far as, at the time 
when they were delivered, the Establishment took a violent 
part against the Catholic Church, on the basis of the Protest- 
ant Tradition. Moreover, I had never as an Anglican been a 
lover of the actual Establishment ; Hurrell Froude's Remains, 
in which it is called an " incubus " and '' Upas Tree," will 
stand in evidence, as for him, so for me ; for I was one of the 
Editors. What I said even as an Anglican, it is not strange 
that I said when I was not. Indeed I have been milder in my 
thoughts of the Establishment ever since I have been a Catho- 
lic than before, and for an obvious reason ; — when I was an 



APPENDIX. 325 

Anglican, I viewed it as repressing a higher doctrine than its 
own ; and now I view it as keeping out a lower and more 
dangerous. 

Then as to my Lectures on Anglican Difficulties. Neither 
were these formally directed against the National Church. 
They were addressed to the " Children of the Movement of 
1833," to impress upon them, that, whatever was #he case 
with others, their duty at least was to become Catholics, since 
Catholicism was the real scope and issue of that Movement. 
'• There is but one thing," I say, " that forces me to speak. 
. . . It will be a miserable thing for you and for me, if I 
have been instrumental in bringing you but half-way, if I 
have cooperated in removing your invincible ignorance, but 
am able to do no more." — p. 5. Such being the drift of the 
Volume, the reasoning directed against the Church of Eng- 
land goes no further than this, that it had no claims whatever 
on such of its members as were proceeding onwards with the 
Movement into the Catholic Church. 

Lastly, as to Loss and Gain : it is the story, simply ideal, 
of the conversion of an Oxford man. Its drift is to show 
how little there is in Anglicanism to satisfy and retain a young 
and earnest heart. In this Tale, all the best characters are 
sober Church-of-England people. No Tractarians proper are 
introduced : and this is noted in the Advertisement : " No 
proper representative is intended in this Tale, of the religious 
opinions, which had lately so much influence in the University 
of Oxford." There could not be such in the Tale, without 
the introduction of friends, which was impossible in its very 
notion. But, since the scene was to be laid during the very 
years, and at the head-quarters, of Tractarianism, some ex- 
pedient was necessary in order to meet what was a great diffi- 
culty. My expedient was the introduction of what may be 
called Tractarians improper ; and I took them the more readi- 
ly, because, though I knew that such there were, I knew none 
of them personally. I mean such men as I used to consider 
of " the gilt-gingerbread school," from whom I expected little 



326 APPENDIX. 

good, persons whose religion lay in ritualism or architecture, 
and who " played at Popery " or at Anglicanism. I repeat I 
knew no such men, because it is one thing to desire fine 
churches and ceremonies (which of course I did myself j, and 
quite another thing to desire these and nothing else ; but at 
that day there was in some quarters, though not in those 
where ihad influence, a strong movement in the esthetic di- 
rection. Doubtless I went too far in my apprehension of such 
a movement : for one of the best and most devoted and hard- 
working Priests I ever knew was the late Father Hutchison, 
of the London Oratory, and ?believe it was architecture that 
directed his thoughts towards the Catholic Church. However, 
I had in my mind an external religion which was inordinate ; 
and, as the men who were considered instances of it, were 
personally unknown to me, even by name, I introduced them, 
under imaginary representatives, in Loss and Gain, and that, 
in order to get clear of Tractarians proper ; and of the three 
nien, whom I have introduced, the Anglican is the best. In 
like manner I introduced two " gilt-gingerbread" young ladies, 
who were ideal, absolutely, utterly, without a shred of concrete 
existence about them ; and I introduced them with the remark 
that they were "really kind charitable persons," and " S^/ ^^ 
means put forth as a a type of a class," that " among such 
persons were to be found the gentlest spirits and the tenderest 
hearts," and that " these sisters had open hands, if they had 
not wise heads," but that " they did not know much of mat- 
ters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves." 

It has been said, indeed, I know not to what extent, that I 
introduced my friends or partisans into the Tale ; this is utter- 
ly untrue. Only two cases of this misconception have come 
to my knowledge, and I at once denied each of them outright ; 
and I take this opportunity of denying generally the truth of 
all other similar charges. No friend of mine, no one connect- 
ed in any way with the Movement, entered into the composi- 
tion of any one of the characters. Indeed, putting aside the 
two instances which have been distinctly brought before me, I 



APPENDIX. 327 " 

have not even any sort of suspicion who the persons are, 
whom I am thus accused of introducing. 

Next, this writer goes on to speak of Tract 90 ; a- subject 
of which I have treated at great length in a former passage 
of this narrative, and, in consequence, need not take up again 
now. 



lY. 

Series of Lives of the English Sahits. 

I have given the history of this publication above at pp. 
337 — 340. It was to have consisted of almost 300 Lives, and 
I was to have been the Editor. It was brought to an end, be- 
fore it was well begun, by the act of friends who were fright- 
ened at the first Life printed, the Life of St. Stephen Harding. 
Thus I was not responsible except for the first two numbers : 
and the Advertisements distinctly declared this. I had just 
the same responsibility about the other Lives, that my assailant 
had, and not a bit more. However, it answers his purpose to 
consider me responsible. 

Next, I observe, that his delusion about " hot-headed fa- 
natic young men " continues : here again I figure with my 
strolling company. " They said," he observes, " what they 
believed ; at least, what they had been taught to believe that 
they ought to believe. And who had taught them ? Dr. New- 
man can best answer that question," p. 20. Well, I will do 
what I can to solve the mystery. 

Now as to the juvenile writers in the proposed series. One 
was my friend Mr. Bowden, who in 1843 was a man of 46 
years old ; he was to have written St. Boniface. Another 
wq^ Mr. Johnson, a man of 42 ; he was to have written St. 
Aldelm. Another was the author of St. Augustine : let us 
hear something about him from this writer : — 

" Dr. Newman," he says, " might have said to the Author 
of the Life of St. Augustine, when he found him, in the heat 



328 APPENDIX. 

and haste of youthful fanaticism^ outraging historic truth and 
the law of evidence, ' This must not be/" — p. 20. 

Good. This juvenile was past 40, — well, say 39. Blot 
seventeen. " This must not be." This is what I ought to 
have said, it seems ! And then, you see, I have not the talent, 
and never had, of some people, for lecturing my equals, much 
less men twenty years older than myself. 

But again, the author of St. Augustine's Life distinctly says 
in his Advertisement, " No one hut himself is responsible for 
the way in which these materials have been used." Blot 
eighteen. 

Thirty-three Lives were actually published. Out of the 
whole number this writer notices three. Of these one is 
" charming ; " therefore I am not to have the benefit of it. 
Another "outrages historic truth and the law of evidence;" 
therefore "it was notoriously sanctioned by Dr. Newman." 
And the third was "one of the most offensive," and Dr. New- 
man must have formally connected himself with it in " a mo- 
ment of amiable weakness." — p. 22. What even-handed jus- 
tice is here ! Blot nineteen. 

But to return to the juvenile author of St. Augustine : — " I 
found," says this writer, " the Life of St. Augustine saying, 
that, though the pretended visit of St. Peter to England wanted 
historic evidence^ ' yet it has undoubtedly been received as a 
fious opinion^ by the Church at large, as we learn from the often- 
quoted words of St. Innocent I. (who wrote a.d. 416) that 
St. Peter was instrumental in the conversion of the West gen- 
erally.'" — p. 21. He brings this passage against me (with 
which, however, I have nothing more to do than he has) as a 
great misdemeanour ; but let us see what his criticism is worth. 
"And this sort of argument," continues the passage, "though 
it ought to be kept quite distinct from documentary and historic 
proof, will not he without its effect on devout minds," &c. I 
should have thought this a very sober doctrine, viz., that we 



appended:. 329 

must not confuse together two things quite distinct from each 
other, criticism and devotion, proof and opinion — ^that a devout 
mind will hold opinions which it cannot demonstrate by " his- 
toric proo/." What, I ask, is the harm of saying this? Is 
this my Assailant's definition of opinion, " a thing which can 
be proved ? " I cannot answer for him, but I can answer for 
men in general. Let him read Sir David Brewster's " More 
Worlds than One ; " — this principle, which is so shocking to 
my assailant, is precisely the argument of Sir David's book ; 
he tells us that the plurality of worlds cannot be proved, but 
will be received by religious men. He asks, p. 229, "i/" the 
stars are not suns, for what conceivable purpose were they 
created? " and then he lays down dogmatically, p. 254, " There 
is no opinion., out of the region of pure demonstration, more 
universally cherished than the doctrine of the Plurality of 
worlds." And in his Title-page he styles this " opinion " " the 
creed of the philosopher and the hope of the Christian." If 
Brewster may bring devotion into Astronomy, why may not 
my friend bring it into History ? and that the more, when he 
actually declares that it ought to be kept quite distinct from 
history, and by no means assumes that he is an historian be- 
cause he is a hagiographer ; whereas, somehow or other, Sir 
David does seem to me to show a zeal greater than be- 
comes a savant, and to assume that he himself is a theologian 
because he is an astronomer. This writer owes Sir David as 
well as me an apology. Blot twenty. 

He ought to wish his original charge against me in the 
Magazine dead and buried ; but he has the good sense and 
good taste to revive it again and again. This is one of the places 
which he has chosen for it. Let him then, ju^ for a change, 
substitute Sir David Brewster for me in his sentence ; Sir 
David has quite as much right to the compliment as I have, 
as far as this Life of St. Augustine is concerned. Then he 
will be saying, that, because Sir David teaches that the belief 
in more worlds than one is a pious opinion, and not a demon- 



330 APPENDIX. 

strated fact, he " does not care for truth for its own sake, or 
teach men to regard it as a virtue," p. 21. Blot twenty-one. 

However, he goes on to give in this same page one other 
evidence of my disregard of truth. The author of St. Augus- 
tine's Life also asks the following question : " Ow what evidence 
do Ave put faith in the existence of St. George, the patron of 
England? Upon such, assuredly, as an acute critic or shilful 
pleader might ^asily scatter to 'the winds ; the belief of preju- 
diced or credulous witnesses, the unwritten record of empty 
pageants and bauble decorations. On the side of scepticism 
might be exhibited a powerful array of suspicious legends and 
exploded acts. Yet, after all,, what Catholic is there hut would 
count it a profaneness to question the existence of St. George ? " 
On which my Assailant observes, " When I found Dr. Kew- 
man allowing his disciples ... in page after page, in Life 
after Life, to talk nonsense of this kind which is not only sheer 
Popery hut saps the very foundation of historic truth, was it so 
wonderful that I conceived him to have taught and thought 
like them?" p. 22, that is, to have taught lying. 

Well and good ; here again take a parallel ; not St. Oeorge, 
but Lycurgus. 

Mr. G-rote says: "Plutarch begins his biography of Ly- 
curgus with the following ominous words : ' Concerning the 
lawgiver Lycurgus, we can assert ahsolutely nothing, which is 
not controverted. There are different stories in respect to his 
birth, his travels, his death, and also his mode of proceed- 
ing, political as well as legislative : least of all is the time 
in. which he lived agreed on.' And this exordium is hut too 
well home out by the unsatisfactory nature of the accounts 
which we read, not only in Plutarch himself, but in those other 
authors, out of whom we are obliged to make up our idea of 
the memorable Lycurgian system." — Greece, vol. ii. p. 455. 
But Bishop Thirlwall says, " Experience proves that scarcely 
any amount of variation, as to the time or circumstances of a 
fact, in the authors who record it, can he a sufficient ground for 
doubting its reality." — Greece, vol. i. p. 332. 



APPENDIX. 331 

Accordingly, my Assailant is virtually saying of the latter 
of these two historians, " When I found the Bishop of St. Da- 
vid's talking nonsense of this kind, which saps the very foun- 
dation of historic truth," was it " hasty or far-fetched" to con- 
clude " that he did not care for truth for it own sake, or teach 
his disciples to regard it as a virtue?" p. 21. Nay, further, 
the Author of St. Augustine is no more a disciple of mine, than 
the Bishop of St. David's is of my Assailant's, and therefore 
the parallel will be more exact if I accuse this Professor of 
History of teaching Dr. Thirlwall not to care for truth, as a 
virtue, for its own sake. Blot twenty-two. 

It is hard on me to have this dull, profitless work, but I 
have pledged myself ; — so now for St. Walburga. 

Now will it be believed that this writer suppresses the fact 
that the miracles of St. Walburga are treated by the author of 
her Life as mythical ? yet that is the tone of the whole compo- 
sition. This Writer can notice it in the Life of St. Neot, the 
first of the three Lives which he criticizes ; these are his 
words : " Some of them, the writers, for instance, of Volume 
4. which contains, among others, a charming life of St. Neot, 
treat the stories openly as legends and myths, and tell them as 
they stand, without asking the reader, or themselves, to believe 
them altogether. The method is harmless enough, if the le- 
gends had stood alone ; but dangerous enough, when they stand 
side by side with stories told in earnest, like that of St, Wal- 
burga." — p. 22. • 

Now, first, that the miraculous stories are treated, in the 
Life of St. Walburga, as legends and myths. Throughout, 
the miracles and extraordinary occurrences are spoken of as 
" said" or " reported ; " arid the suggestion is made that, even 
though they occiirred, they might have been after all natural. 
Thus, in one of the very passages which my Assai]^nt quotes, 
the author says, " IHuminated men feel the privileges of 
Christianity, and to them the evil influence of Satanic power 
is horribly discernible, like the Egyptian darkness which 



332 APPENDIX. 

could be felt ; and the only way to express their keen perception 
of it is to say, that they see upon the countenances of the slaves 
of sin, the marks, and lineaments, and stamp of the evil one ; 
and [that] they smell w^ith their nostrils the horrible fumes 
that arise from their vices and uncleansed heart" &c., p. 78. 
This introduces St. Sturme and the gambolling Germans ; 
what does it mean but that " the intolerable scent " was noth- 
ing physical, or strictly miraculous, but the horror, parallel 
to physical distress, with which the Saint was affected, from 
his knowledge of the state of their souls ? My Assailant 
is a lucky man, if mental pain has never come upon him 
with a substance and a volume, as forcible as if it were 
bodily. 

And so in like manner, the Author of the Life says, as this 
writer actually has quoted him, " a story was told and believed" 
p. 94. " One evening, says her history" p. 87. " Another 
incident is thus related" p. 88. " Immediately, says Wiilf- 
hard," p. 91. "A vast number of other cases are recorded" 
p. 92. And there is a distinct intimation that they may 
be myths, in a passage which this Assailant himself quotes, 
" All these have the character of a gentle mother correcting 
the idleness and faults of careless and thoughtless children 
with tenderness." — p. 95. I. think the criticism which he 
makes upon this Life is one of the most wanton passages 
in his Pamphlet. The Life is beautifully written, full of 
•poetry, and, as I have said, bears on its very surface the 
profession of a legendary and mythical character. Blot 
twenty-three. 

In saying all this, I have no intention whatever of imply- 
ing that miracles did not illustrate the Life of St. Walburga ; 
but neither the Author nor I have bound ourselves to the 
belief of certain instances in particular. My Assailant, in the 
passage which I just now quoted from him, made some distinc- 
tion, which was apparently intended to save St. Neot, while it 
condemned St. Walburga. He said that legends are ••' dan- 



APPENDIX. 333 

gerous enough, when they stand side by side with stories told 
in earnest like St. Walburga." He will find he has here 
Dr. Milman against him, as he has already had Sir David 
Brewster, and the Bishop of St. David's. He accuses me of 
having " outraged historic truth and the law of evidence," 
because friends of mine have considered that, though opinions 
need not be convictions, nevertheless that legends may be con- 
nected with history ; now, on the contrary, let us hear the 
Dean of St. Paul's : — 

" History^ to be true, must condescend to speak the lan- 
guage of legend ; the belief of the times is jpart of the record 
of the times ; and, though there may occur what may baffle 
its more calm and searching philosophy, it must not dis- 
dain that which was the primal, almost universal, motive 
of human life." — Latin. Christ., vol. i. p. 388. Dr. Mil- 
man's decision justifies me in putting this down as Blot 
twenty-four. 

However, there is one miraculous account for which this 
writer makes me directly answerable, and with reason ; and 
with it I shall conclude my reply to his criticisms on the " Lives 
of the English Saints." It is the medicinal oil which flows 
from the relics of St. Walburga. 

Now, as I shall have occasion to remark under my next 
Head, these two questions among others occur, in judging of 
a miraculous story ; viz., whether the matter of it is extrava- 
gant, and whether it is a fact. And first, it is plain there is 
nothing extravagant in this report of the relics having a super- 
natural virtue ; and for this reason, because there are such 
instances in Scripture, and Scripture cannot be extravagant. 
For instance, a man was restored to life by touching the 
relics of the Prophet Eliseus. The sacred text runs thus : — 
" And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of 
the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. 
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, be- 
hold, they spied a band of men ; and they cast the man into 



334 APPENDIX. 

the sepulchre of Elisha. And, when the man was let down, 
and touched the hones of Elisha^ he revived^ and stood upon his 
feet." Again, in the case of an inanimate substance, which 
had touched a living Saint : " And God wrought special mira- 
cles by the hands of Paul ; so that from Ms body were brought 
unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons^ and the diseases departed 
from them." And again in the case of a pool : " An Angel 
went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the 
water ; whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water, 
stepped in, was made whole of ivhatsoever disease he had.'' 
2 Kings [4 Kings] xiii. 20, 21. Acts xix. 11, 12. John v. 
4. Therefore there is nothing extravagant in the character of 
the miracle. 

The main question then (I do not say the only remaining 
question, but the main question) is the matter of fact : — is 
there an oil flowing from St. Walburga's tomb, which is medi- 
cinal? To this question I confined myself in the Preface 
to the Volume. Of the accounts of medieval miracles, I said 
that there was no extravagance in their general character, but 
I could not affirm that there was always evidence for them. I 
could not simply accept them as facts, but I could not reject 
them in their nature ; they might be true, for they were not 
impossible : but they were not proved to be true, because 
there was not trustworthy testimony. However, as to St. 
Walburga, I made one exception, the fact of the medicinal 
oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and successive 
testimony. And then I went on to give a chain of witnesses. 
It was my duty to state what those witnesses said in their 
very words ; and I did so ; they were in Latin, and I gave 
them in Latin. One of them speaks of the " sacrum oleum" 
flowing " de membris ejus virgineis, maxime tamen pectora- 
libus ; " and so I printed it ; — if I had left it out, this sweet- 
tempered Writer would have accused me of an " economy." 
I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from the Saint's 
death. I said, " She is one of the principal Saints of her age 
and country." Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who 



APPENDIX. 335 

says^ " Six writers are extant, who have employed themselves 
in relating the deeds or miracles of Walburga." Then I said 
that her " renown was not the mere natural growth of ages, 
but begins with the very century of the Saint's death." Then 
I observed that only two miracles seem to have been " dis- 
tinctly reported of her as occurring in her lifetime ; and they 
were handed down apparently by tradition." Also, that they 
are said to have commenced about a.d. 777. Then I spoke 
of the medicinal oil as having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, 
after 1450, in 1615, and in 1620. Also, I said that Mabillon 
seems not to have believed some of her miracles ; and that the 
earliest witness had got into trouble with his Bishop. And so 
I left it, as a question to be decided by evidence, not deciding 
any thing myself. 

What was the harm of aU this ? but my Critic has muddled 
it together in a most extraordinary manner, and I am far from 
sure that he knows himself the definite categorical charge 
which he intends it to convey against me. One of his remarks 
is, " What has become of the holy oil for the last 240 years, 
Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25. Of course I did not, 
because I did not know ; I gave the evidence as I found it ; he 
assumes that I had a point to prove, and then asks why I did 
not make the evidence larger than it was. I put this down 
as Blot Uventy-five. 

I can tell him more about it now ; the oil still flows ; I 
have had some of it in my possession ; it is medicinal ; some 
think it is so by a natural quality, others by a divine gift. 
Perhaps it is on the confines of both. 



Y. 

Ecclesiastical Mirficles. 

What is the use of going on with this Writer's criticisms 
upon me, when I am confined to the dull monotony of exposing 
and oversetting him again and again, with a persistence, which 



336 • APPENDIX. 

many will think merciless, and few will have the interest to 
read ? Yet I am obliged to do so, lest I should seem to be 
evading difficulties. 

Now as to Miracles. Catholics believe that they happen 
in any age of the Church, though not for the same purposes, in 
the same number, or with the same evidence, as in Apostolic 
times. The Apostles wrought them in evidence of their divine 
mission ; and with this object they have been sometimes 
wrought by Evangelists of countries since, as even Protestants 
allow. Hence we hear of them in the history of St. Gregory 
in Pontus, and St. Martin in Gaul ; and in their case, as in 
that of the Apostles, they were both numerous and clear. As 
they are granted to Evangelists, so are they granted, though in 
less measure and evidence, to other holy men ; and as holy 
men are not found equally at all times and in all places, there- 
fore miracles are in some places and times more than in others. 
And sijice, generally, they are granted to faith and prayer, 
therefore in a country in which faith and prayer abound, they 
will be more likely to occur, than where and when faith and 
prayer are not ; so that their occurrence is irregular. And 
further, as faith and prayer obtain miracles, so still more com- 
monly do they gain from above the ordinary interventions of 
Providence ; and, as it is often very difficult to distinguish be- 
tween a providence and a miracle, and there will be more 
providences than miracles, hence it will happen that many oc- 
currences will be called miraculous, which, strictly speaking, 
are not such, and not more than providential mercies, or what 
are sometimes called " graces" or "favours." 

Persons who believe all this, in accordance with Catholic 
teaching, as I did and do, they, on the report of a miracle, will 
of necessity, the necessity of good logic, be led to say first, "It 
may be," and secondly, " But I must have good evidence in 
order to believe it." It may be, because miracles take place in 
all ages ; it must be clearly jjrovec?, because perhaps after all it 
may be only a* providential mercy, or an exaggeration, or a 
mistake, or an imposture. Well, this is precisely what I have 



APPENDIX. 337 

said, which this Writer considers so irrational. I have said, 
as he quotes me, p. 24, " In this day, and under our present 
circumstances, we can only reply, that there is no reason why 
they should not be." Surely this is good logic, provided that 
miracles do occur in all ages ; and so again is it logical to say, 
"There is nothing, jprwnc^ /aae, in the miraculous accounts in 
question, to repel a 'properly taught or religiously disposed 
mind." What is the matter with this statement ? My Assail- 
ant does not pretend to say what the matter is, and he cannot ; 
but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonishment. Next, I 
stated what evidence there is for the miracles of which I was 
speaking; what is the harm of that? He observes, "What 
evidence Dr. Newman requires, he makes evident at once. 
He at least will fear for himself, and swallow the whole as it 
comes." — p. 24. What random abuse is this, or, to use his 
own ivords of me just before, what " stuff and nonsense ! " 
What is it I am " swallowing?" " the whole" what?^the evi- 
dence ? or the miracles ? I have swallowed neither, nor im- 
plied any such thing. Blot twenty-six. 

But to return : I have just said that a Catholic's state of 
mind, of logical necessity, will be, " It may be a miracle, but 
it has to be proved." What has to be proved? 1. That the 
event occurred as stated, and is not a false report or an exag- 
geration. 2. That it is clearly miraculous, and not a mere 
providence or answer to prayer within the order of nature. 
What is the fault of saying this ? The inquiry is parallel to 
that which is made about some extraordinary fact in secular 
history. Supposing I hear that King Charles II. died a Catho- 
lic, I should say, 1. It may be. 2. What is your proof f Ac- 
cordingly, in the passage which this writer quotes, I observe, 
" Miracles are the kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history, 
just as instances of sagacity or daring, personal prowess, or 
crime, are the facts proper to secular history." What is the 
harm of this? But this Writer says, " Verily his [Dr. New- 
man's] idea of secular history is almost as degraded as his idea 
15 



338 APPENDIX. 

of ecclesiastical," p. 24, and he ends with this muddle of an 
Ipsi dixit ! Blot twenty-seven. 

In like manner, about the Holy Coat at Treves, he says of 
me, " Dr. Newman . . . seems hardly sure of the authenticity 
of the Holy Coat." Why need I be, more than I am sure 
that Richard HI. murdered the little princes ? If I have not 
means of making up my mind one way or the other, surely my 
most logical course is " not to be sure." He continues, " Dr. 
Newman ' does not see why it may not have heen what it pro- 
fesses to be.' " Well, is not that just what this Writer would 
say of a great number of the facts recorded in secular history ? 
is it not what he would be obliged to say of much that is told 
us about the armour and other antiquities in the Tower of 
London? To this I alluded in the passage from which he 
quotes ; but he has garhled that passage, and I must show it. 
He quotes me to this effect : " Is the Tower of London shut 
against sight-seers because the coats of mail or pikes there may 
have half-legendary tales connected with them ? why then may 
not the country people come up in joyous companies singing 
and piping to see the holy coat at Treves ? " On this he re- 
marks, " To see, forsooth ! to worship, Dr. Newman would 
have said, had he known (as I take for granted he does not) 
the facts of that imposture." Here, if I understand him, he 
implies that the people came up, not only to see, but to wor- 
ship, and that I have slurred over the fact that their coming 
was an act of religious homage, that is, what he would call 
" worship." Now, will it be believed that, so far from con- 
cealing this, I had carefully stated it in the sentence immedi- 
ately preceding, and he suppresses it f I say, " The world pays 
civil honours to it [a jewel said to be Alfred's] on the proba- 
bility ; we pay religious honour to relics, if so be, on the 
probability. Is the Tower of London," I proceed, " shut," 
f&c. Blot twenty-eight. 

These words of mine, however, are but one sentence in a 



APPENDIX. 339 

long argument, conveying the Catholic view on the subject of 
ecclesiastical miracles ; and, as it is carefully worked out, and 
very much to the present point, and will save me doing over 
again what I could not do better or more fully now, if I set 
about it, I shall make a very long extract from the Lecture in 
which it occurs, and so bring this Head to an end. 

The argument, I should first observe, which is worked out, 
is this, that Catholics set out with a definite religious tenet as 
a first principle, and Protestants with a contrary one, and that 
on this account it comes to pass that miracles are credible to 
Catholics and incredible to Protestants. 

" We affirm that the Supreme Being has wrought miracles 
on earth ever since the time of the Apostles ; Protestants deny 
it. Why do we affirm, why do they deny ? We affirm it on a 
first principle, they deny it on a first principle ; and on either 
side the first principle is made to be decisive of the question. 
. . . Both they and we start with the miracles of the Apostles ; 
and then their first principle or presumption against our mira- 
cles is this, ' What God did once. He is not likely to do again ; ' 
while our first principle or presumption for our miracles is this : 
' What God did once. He is likely to do again.' They say, It 
cannot be supposed He will v/ork many miracles ; we. It cannot 
be supposed He will work/e?y. 

"The Protestant, I say, laughs at the very idea of mira- 
cles or supernatural powers as occurring at this day ; his first 
principle is rooted in him ; he repels from him the idea of 
miracles ; he laughs at the notion of evidence ; one is just as 
likely as another ; they are all false. Why ? because of his 
first principle. There are no miracles since the Apostles. 
Here, indeed, is a short and easy way of getting rid of the 
whole subject, not by reason, but by a first principle which he 
calls reason. Yes, it is reason, granting his first principle is 
true ; it is not reason, supposing his first principle is false. 

"There is in the Church a vast tradition and testimony 
about miracles ; how is it to be accounted for ? If miracles 



340 APPENDIX. 

can take place, "then the fact of the miracle will be a natural 
explanation of the rejport^ just as the fact of a man d^ing ac- 
counts satisfactorily for the news that he is dead ; but the Prot- 
estant cannot so explain it ; because he thinks miracles cannot 
take place ; so he is necessarily driven, by Vfay of accounting 
for the report of them, to impute that report to fraud. He 
cannot help himself. I repeat it ; the whole mass of accusa- 
tions which Protestants bring against us under this head, 
Catholic credulity, imposture, pious frauds, hypocrisy, priest- 
craft, this vast and varied superstructure of imputation, you 
see, all rests on an assumption, on an opinion of theirs, for 
which they offer no kind of proof. What then, in fact, do they 
say more than this. If Protestantism be true, you Catholics 
are a most awful set of knaves ? Here, at least, is a most sen- 
sible and undeniable position. 

" Now, on the other hand, let me take our own side of the 
question, and consider how we ourselves stand relatively to 
the charge made against us. Catholics, then, hold the mystery 
of the Incarnation ; and the Incarnation is the most stupendous 
event which ever can take place on earth ; and after it and 
henceforth, I do not see how we can scruple at any miracle on 
the mere ground of its being unlikely to happen. . . . When 
we start with assuming that miracles are not unlikely, we are 
putting forth a position which lies embedded, as it were, and 
involved in the great revealed fact of the Incarnation. So 
much is plain on starting ; but more is plain too. Miracles 
are not only not unlikely, but they are positively likely ; and 
for this simple reason, because for the most part, when God 
begins. He goes on. We conceive, that when He first did a 
miracle. He began a series ; what He commenced. He con- 
tinued : what has been, will be. Surely this is good and clear 
reasoning. To my own mind, certainly, it is incomparably 
more difficult to believe that the Divine Being shoidd do one 
miracle and no more, than that He should do a thousand ; that 
He should do one great miracle only, than that He should do 
a multitude of lesser besides. ... If the Divine Being does a 



APPENDIX. . 341 

thing once, He is, judging by human reason, likely to do it 
again. This surely is common sense. If a beggar gets food 
at a gentleman's house once, does he not send others thither 
after him? If you are attacked by thieves once, do you forth- 
with leave your vsrindows open at night ? . . . . Nay, suppose 
you yourselves were once to see a miracle, would you not feel 
the occurrence to be like passing a line ? would you, in con- 
sequence of it, declare, ' I never will believe another if I hear 
of one?' would it not, on the contrary, predispose you to 
listen to a new report ? . . . . 

"When I hear the report of a miracle, my first feeling 
would be of the same kind as if it were a report of any natural 
exploit or event. Supposing, for instance, I heard a report of 
the death of some public man ; it would not startle me, even 
if I did not at once credit it, for all men must die. Did I 
I'ead of any great feat of valour, I should believe it, if imputed 
to Alexander or Coeur de Lion. Did I hear of any act of 
baseness, I should disbelieve it, if imputed to a friend whom I 
knew and loved. And so in like manner were a miracle re- 
ported to me as wrought by a Member of Parliament, or a 
Bishop of the Establishment, or a Wesleyan preacher, I should 
repudiate the notion : were it referred to a saint, or the relic 
of a saint, or the intercession of a saint, I should not be startled 
at it, though I might not at once believe it. And I certainly 
should be right in this conduct, supposing my First Principle 
be true. Miracles to the Catholic are historical facts, and 
nothing short of this ; and they are to be regarded and dealt 
with as other facts ; and. as natural facts, under circumstances, 
do not startle Protestants, so supernatural, under circumstances, 
do not stairtle the Catholic. They may or may not have taken 
place in particular cases ; he may be unable to determine 
which ; he may have no distinct evidence ; he may suspend his 
judgment, but he will say ' It is very possible ; ' he never will 
say ' I cannot believe it.' 

" Take the history of Alfred ; you know his wise, mild, 
beneficent, yet daring character, and his romantic vicissitudes 



342 , APPENDIX. ^ 

of fortune. This great king has a number of stories, or, as 
you may call them, legends told of him. Do you believe them 
afll ? no. Do you, on the other hand, think them incredible ? 
no. Do you call a man a dupe or a blockhead for believing 
them? no. Do you call an author a knave or a cheat -who 
records them? no. You go into neither extreme, whether of 
implicit faith or of violent reprobation. You are not so ex- 
travagant ; you see that they suit his character, they may have 
happened : yet this is so romantic, that has so little evidence, 
a third is so confused in dates or in geography, that you are in 
matter of fact indisposed towards them. Others are probably 
true, others certainly. Nor do you force every one to take 
your view of particular stories ; you and your neighbour think 
differently about this or that in detail, and agree to differ. 
There is in the museum at Oxford, a jewel or trinket said to 
be Alfred's ; it is shown to all comers ; I never heard the 
keeper of the museum accused of hypocrisy or fraud for show- 
ing, with Alfred's name appended, what he might or might not 
himself believe to have belonged to that great king ; nor did I 
ever see any party of strangers who were looking at it with 
awe, regarded by any self-complacent bystander with scornful 
compassion. Yet the curiosity is not to a certainty Alfred's. 
The world pays civil honour to it on the probability ; we pay 
religious honour to relics, if so be, on the probability. Is the 
Tower of London shut against sight-seers, because the coats 
of mail and pikes there may have half-legendary tales connected 
with them ? why then may not the country people come up in 
joyous companies, singing and piping, to see the Holy Coat 
at Treves ? There is our Queen again, who is so truly and 
justly popular ; she roves about in the midst of tradition and 
romance ; she scatters myths and legends from her as she goes 
along ; she is a being of poetry, and you might fairly be scepti- 
cal whether she had any personal existence. She is always at 
some beautiful, noble, bounteous work or other, if you trust 
the papers. She is doing alms-deeds in the Highlands ; she 
meets beggars in her rides at Windsor ; she writes verses in 



4. APPENDIX. 343 

albums, or draws sketches, or is mistaken for the house-keeper 
by some blind old woman, or she runs up a hill as if she were 
a child. Who finds fault with these things ? he would be a 
cynic, he would be white-livered, and would have gall for 
blood, who was not struck with this graceful, touching evi- 
dence of the love her subjects bear her. Who could have the 
head, even if he had the heart, who could be so cross and 
peevish, who could be so solemn and perverse, as to say that 
some of these stories may be simple lies, and all of them might 
have stronger evidence than they carry with them ? Do you 
think she is displeased at them? Why then should He, the 
Great Father, who once walked the earth, look sternly on the 
unavoidable mistakes of His own subjects and children in their 
devotion to Him and His ? Even granting they mistake some 
cases in particular, from the infirmity of human nature and 
the contingencies of evidence, and fancy there is or has been 
a miracle here and there when there is not, though a tradition, 
attached to a picture, or to a shrine, or a well, be very doubt- 
ful, though one relic be sometimes mistaken for another, and 
St. Theodore stands for St. Eugenius or St. Agathocles, still 
once take into account our First Principle, that He is likely to 
continue miracles among us, which is as good as the Protest- 
ant's, and I do not see why He should feel much displeasure 
with us on account of this, or should cease to work wonders 
in our behalf. In the Protestant's view, indeed, who assumes 
that miracles never are, our thaumatology is one great false- 
hood ; but that is his First Principle, as I have said so often, 
which he does not prove but assume. If he, indeed, upheld 
our system, or we held his principle, in either case he or we 
should be impostors ; but though we should be partners to a 
fraud if we thought like Protestants, we surely are not if we 
think like Catholics. 

" Such then is the answer I make to those who would urge 
against us the multitude of miracles recorded in our Saints'' 
Lives and devotional works, for many of which there is little 
evidence, and for some next to none. We think them true in 



344 APPENDIX. 

the same sense in which Protestants think the history of Eng- 
land true. When they say that^ they do not mean to say that 
there are no mistakes, but no mistakes of consequence, none 
which alter the general course of history. Nor do they mean 
they are equally sure of every part ; for evidence is fuller and 
better for some things than for others. They do not stake 
their credit on the truth of Froissart or Sully, they do not 
pledge themselves for the accuracy of Doddington or Walpole, 
they do not embrace as an Evangelist Hume, Sharon Turner, 
or Macaulay. And yet they do not think it necessary, on the 
other liand, to commence a religious war against all our 
historical catechisms, and abstracts, and dictionaries, and tales, 
and biographies, through the country ; tliey have no call on 
them to amend and expurgate books of archgeology, antiquities, 
heraldry, architecture, geography, and statistics, to rewrite 
our inscriptions, and to establish a censorship on all new pub- 
lications for the time to come. And so as regards the miracles 
of the Catholic Church ; if, indeed, miracles never can occur, 
then, indeed, impute the narratives to fraud ; but till you prove 
they are not likely, we shall consider the histories which have 
come down to us true on the whole, though in particular cases 
they may be exaggerated or unfounded. Where, indeed, 
they can certainly be proved to be false, there we shall be 
bound to do our best to get rid of them ; but till that is 
clear, we shall be liberal enough to allow others to use their 
private judgment in their favour, as we use ours in their 
disparagement. For myself, lest I appear in any way to be 
shrinking from a determinate judgment on the claims of some 
of those miracles and relics, which Protestants are so startled 
at, and to be hiding particular questions in what is vague and 
general, I will avow distinctly, that, ^putting out of the question 
the hypothesis of unhnown laivs of nature (which is an evasion 
from the force of any proof) , I think it impossible to withstand 
the evidence which is brought for the liquefaction of the blood 
of St. Januarius at Naples, and for the motion of the eyes of 
the pictures of the Madonna in the Roman States. I see no 



APPENDIX. 346 

reason to douht the material of the Lombard crown at Monza ; 
and I do not see why the Holy Coat at Treves may not have been 
what it professes to be. I firmly believe that portions of the 
True Cross are at Rome and elsewhere, that the Crib of Beth- 
lehem is at Rome, and the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul 

also Many men when they hear an educated man so 

speak, wiU at once impute the avowal to insanity, or to an 
idiosyncrasy, or to imbecility of mind, or to decrepitude of 
powers, or to fanaticism, or to hypocrisy. They have a fight 
to say so, if they will ; and we have a right to ask them why 
they do not say it of those who bow down before the Mystery 
of mysteries, the Divine Incarnation ? " 

In my Essay on Miracles of the year 1826, I proposed 
three questions about a professed miraculous occurrence, 1. is 
it antecedently prohahle f 2. is it in its nature certainly mi- 
raculous? 3. has it sufficient evidence? These are the three 
heads under which I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the 
miracles of Ecclesiastical History. 



YL 

Pojpular Religion. 

This Writer uses much rhetoric against a Lecture of mine, 
in which I bring out, as honestly as I can, the state of coun- 
tries which have long received the Catholic Faith, and hold it 
by force of tradition, universal custom, and legal establish- 
ment ; a Lecture in which I give pictures, drawn principally 
from the middle ages, of what, considering the corruption of 
the human races generally, that state is sure to be, — ^pictures 
of its special sins and offences, sui generis, which are the re- 
sult of that Faith when it is separated from Love or Charity, 
or of what Scripture calls a " dead faith," of the Light shin- 
ing in darkness, and the truth held in unrighteousness. The 
nearest approach which this Writer is able to make towards 
15* 



346 APPENDIX. 

stating what I have said in this Lecture, is to state the very 
reverse. Observe : we have already had some instances of 
the haziness of his ideas concerning the " Notes of the Church.'* 
These Notes are, as any one knows who has looked into the 
subject, certain great and simple characteristics, which He 
who founded the Church has stamped upon her in order to 
draw both the reason and the imagination of men to her, as 
being really a divine work, and a religion distinct from all 
other religious communities ; the principle of these Notes be- 
ing that she is Holy, One, Catholic, and Apostolic, as the 
Creed says. Now, to use his own word, he has the incredi- 
ble "audacity" to say, that I have declared, not the divine 
characteristics of the Church, but the sins and scandals in her, 
to be her Notes, — as if I made God the Author of evil. He 
says distinctly, " Dr. Newman, with a kind of desperate au- 
dacity, will dig forth such scandals as Notes of the Catholic 
Church." This is what I get at his hands for my honesty. 
Blot twenty-nine. 

Again, he says, " [Dr. Newman uses] the blasphemy and 
profanity which he confesses to be so common in Catholic 
countries, as an argument for^ and not against the ' Catholic 
Faith.' " — ^p. 34. That is, because I admit that profaneness 
exists in the Church, therefore I consider it a token of the 
Church. Yes, certainly, just as our national form of cursing 
is an evidence of the being of a God, and as a gallows is the 
glorious sign of a civilized country, — -but in no other way. 
Blot thirty. 

What is it that I really say ? I say as follows : Protest- 
ants object that the communion of Rome does not fulfil satis- 
factorily the expectation which we may justly form concerning 
the True Church, as it is delineated in the four Notes, enumer- 
ated in the Creed; and among others, e. g. in the Note of 
sanctity ; and they point, in proof of what they assert, to the 
state of Catholic countries. Now, in answer to this objec- 



APPENDIX. 34Y 

tion, it is plain what I might have done, if I had not had a 
conscience. I might have denied the fact. I might have 
said, for instance, that the middle ages were as virtuous, as 
they were believing. I might have denied that there was any 
violence, any superstition, any immorality, any blasphemy 
during them. And so as to the state of countries which have 
long had the light of Catholic truth, and have degenerated. I 
might have admitted nothing against them, and explained 
away every thing which plausibly told to their disadvantage. 
I did nothing of the kind ; and what effect has this had upon 
this estimable critic? "Dr. Newman takes a seeming pleas- 
ure," he says, " in detailing instances of dishonesty on the 
part of Catholics." — ^p. 34. Blot thirty-one. Any one who 
knows me well, would testify that my " seeming pleasure," as 
he calls it, at such things, is just the impatient sensitiveness, 
which relieves itself by means of a definite delineation of what 
is so hateful to it. 

However, to pass on. All the miserable scandals of Cath- 
olic countries, taken at the worst, are, as I view the matter, 
no argument against the Church itself ; and the reason which 
I give in the Lecture is, that, according to the proverb, Cor- 
ruptio optimi est pessima. The Jews could sin in a way no 
other contemporary race could sin, for theirs was a sin against 
light ; and Catholics can sin with a depth and intensity with 
which Protestants cannot sin. There will be more blasphemy, 
more hatred of God, more of a diabolical rebellion, more of 
awful sacrilege, more of vile hypocrisy in a Catholic country 
than anywhere else, because there is in it more of sin against 
light. Surely, this is just what Scripture says, " Woe unto 
theei^ Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! " And, again, 
surely what is told us by religious men, say by Father Bres- 
ciani, about the present unbelieving party in Italy, fully bears 
out the divine text : "If, after they have escaped the pollu- 
tions of the world . . . they are again entangled therein and 
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the begin- 
ning. For it had been better for them not to have known the 



348 APPENDIX. 

way of righteonsness, than, after they have known it, to turn 
from the holy commandments delivered unto them." 

And what is true of those who thus openly oppose them- 
selves to the truth, as it was true of the Evil One in the be- 
ginning, will in an analogous way be true in the case of all 
sin, be it of a heavier or lighter character, which is found in 
a Catholic country , — sin will be strangely tinged or dyed by 
religious associations or beliefs, and will exhibit the tragical 
inconsistencies of the excess of knowledge over love, or of 
much faith with little obedience. The mysterious battle be- 
tween good and evil will assume in a Catholic country its 
most frightful shape, when it is not the collision of two dis- 
tinct and far-separated hosts, but when it is carried on in 
hearts and souls, taken one by one, and when the eternal foes 
are so intermingled and interfused that to human eyes they 
seem to coalesce into a multitude of individualities. This is 
in course of years, the real, the hidden condition of a nation, 
which has been bathed in Christian ideas, whether it be a 
young vigorous race, or an old and degenerate ; and it will 
manifest itself socially and historically in those characteris- 
tics, sometimes grotesque, sometimes hideous, sometimes des- 
picable, of which we have so many instances, medieval and 
modern, both in this hemisphere and in the western. It is, I 
say, the necessary result of the intercommunion of divine faith 
and human corruption. 

But it has a light side as well as a dark. First, much 
which seems profane, is not in itself profane, but in the sub- 
jective view of the Protestant beholder. Scenic representa- 
tions of our Lord's Passion are not profane to a Catholic pop- 
ulation ; in like manner, there are usages, customs, institu- 
tions, actions, often of an indifferent nature, which will be ne- 
cessarily mixed up with religion in a Catholic country, be- 
cause all things whatever are so mixed up. Protestants have 
been sometimes shpcked, most absurdly as a Catholic rightly 
decides, at hearing that Mass is sometimes said for a good 
haul of fish. Tliere is no sin here, but only a difference from 



APPENDIX. 349 

Protestant customs. Other phenomena of a Catholic nation 
are at most mere extravagances. And then as to what is 
really sinful, if there be in it fearful instances of blasphemy 
or superstition, there are alsft special and singular fruits and 
exhibitions of sanctity ; and, if the many do not seem to lead 
better lives for all their religious knowledge, at least they 
learn, as they can learn nowhere else, how to repent thor-. 
oughly and to die well. 

The visible state of a country, which professes Catholic- 
ism, need not be the measure of the spiritual result of that 
Catholicism, at the Eternal Judgment Seat ; but no one could 
say that that visible state was a Note that Catholicism was di- 
vine. 

All this I attempted to bring out in the Lecture of which 
I am speaking ; and that I had some success I am glad to in- 
fer from the message of congratulation upon it, which I re- 
ceived at the time, from a foreign Catholic layman, of high 
English reputation, with whom I had not the honour of a per- 
sonal acquaintance. And having given the key to the Lec- 
ture, which the Writer so wonderfully misrepresents, I pass 
on to another head. 



YII. 

The Economy, 

For the subject of the Economy, I shall refer to my dis- 
cussion upon it in my History of the Arians, after one word 
about this Writer. He puts into his Title-page these words 
from a Sermon of mine : " It is not more than a hyperbole to 
say, that, in certain cases, a lie is the nearest approach to 
truth." This Sermon he attacks ; but I do not think it neces- 
sary to defend it here, because any one who reads it, will see 
that he is simply incapable of forming a notion of what it is 
about. It treats of subjects which are entirely out of his 
depth ; and, as I have already shown in other instances, and 
observed in the beginning of this Volume, he illustrates in his 



350 APPENDIX. 

own person the very thing that shocks him, viz., that the near- 
est approach to truth, in given cases, is a lie. He does his 
best to make something of it, I believe ; but he gets simply 
perplexed. He finds that it annihilates space, robs him of lo- 
comotion, almost scoffs at the existence of the earth, and he is 
simply frightened and cowed. He can but say " the man who 
WTote that sermon was already past the possibility of conscious 
dishonesty," p. 41. Perhaps it is hardly fair, after such a 
confession on his part of being fairly beat, to mark down a 
blot ; however, let it be Blot thirty-two. 

Then again, he quotes from me thus : " Many a theory or 
view of things, on which an institution is founded, or a party 
held together, is of the same kind (economical). Many an 
argument, used by zealous and earnest men, has this economi- 
cal character, being not the very ground on which they act 
(for they continue in the same course, though it be refuted), 
yet in a certain sense, a representation o£ it, a proximate de- 
scription of their feelings, in the shape of argument, on which 
they can rest, to which they can recur when perplexed, and 
appeal when they are questioned." He calls these " startling 
words," p. 39. Yet here again he illustrates their truth ; for 
in his own case, he has acted on them in this very controversy 
with the most happy exactness. Surely he referred to my 
Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence, when called on to prove 
me a liar, as "a proximate description of his feelings about 
me, in the shape of argument," and he has " continued in the 
same course, though it has been refuted." Blot thirty-three. 

Then, as to "a party being held together by a mythical 
representation," or economy. Surely " Church and King," 
" Keform," " Non-intervention," are such symbols ; or let this 
Writer answer Mr. Kinglake's question in his " Crimean 
War," "Is it true that . . . great armies were gathering, 
and that for the sake of the Key and the Star the peace of 
the nations was brought into danger ? " Blot thirty-fvur. 



APPENDIX. 351 

In the beginning of this work, pp. 39-46, I refuted his 
gratuitous accusation against me at p. 46, founded on my call- 
ing one of my Anglican Sermons a Protestant one : so I have 
nothing to do but to register it here as Blot thirty-five. 

Then he says that I committed an economy in placing in 
my original title-page, that the question between him and me, 
was whether " Dr. Newman teaches that Truth is no virtue." 
It was a " wisdom of the serpentine type," since I did not add, 
" for its own sake." Now observe : First, as to the matter 
of fact, in the course of my Letters, which bore that Title- 
page, I printed the words " for its own sake,"^ve times over. 
Next, pray, what kind of a virtue is that, which is not done 
for its own sake ? So this, after all, is this Writer's idea of 
virtue ! a something that is done for the sake of something 
else ; a sort of expedience ! He is honest, it seems, simply 
because honesty is " the best policy," and on that score it is 
that he thinks himself virtuous. Why, " for its own sake" 
enters into the very idea or definition of a virtue: Defend me 
from such virtuous men as this Writer would inflict upon us ! 
Blot thirty-six. 

These Blots are enough just now ; so I proceed to a brief 
sketch of what I held in 1833 upon the Economy, as a rule 
of practice. I wrote this two months ago ; perhaps the com- 
position is not quite in keeping with the run of this Appendix ; 
and it is short ; but I think it will be sufficient for my pur- 
pose : — 

The doctrine of the Economia^ had, as I have shown, pp. 
75-79, a large signification when applied to the divine or- 
dinances ; it also had a definite application to the duties of 
Christians, whether clergy or laity, in preaching, in instruct- 
ing or catechizing, or in ordinary intercourse with the world 
around them. 

As Almighty God did not all at once introduce the Gospel to 
the world, and thereby gradually prepared men for its profitable 



852 APPENDIX. 

reception, so, according to the doctrine of the early Church, it 
was a duty, for the sake of the heathen among whom they 
lived, to observe a great reserve and caution in communicating 
to them the knowledge of the " whole counsel of God." This 
cautious dispensation of the truth, after the manner of a discreet 
and vigilant steward, is denoted by the word " economy." It 
is a mode of acting which comes under the head of Prudence, 
one of the four Cardinal Virtues. 

The principle of the Economy is this : that out of various 
courses, in religious conduct or statement, all and each allow- 
able antecedently and in themselves, that ought to be taken 
which is most expedient and most suitable at the time for the 
object in hand. 

Instances of its application and exercise in Scripture are 
such as the following : — 1. Divine Providence did but gradu- 
ally impart to the world in general, and to the Jews in par- 
ticular, the knowledge of His will : — He is said to have 
" winked at the times of ignorance among the heathen ; " and 
He suiFered in the Jews divorce " because of the hardness of 
their hearts." 2. He has allowed Himself to be represented 
as having eyes, ears, and hands, as having wrath, jealousy, 
grief, and repentance. 3. In like manner, our Lord spoke 
harshly to the Syro-Phoenician woman, whose daughter He 
was about to heal, and made as if he would go further, when 
the two disciples had come to their journey's end. 4. Thus 
too Joseph "made himself strange to his brethren," and 
Elisha kept silence ^n request of Naaman to bow in the house 
of Pimmon. 5. Thus St. Paul circumcised Timothy, while 
he cried out " Circumcision ayaileth not." 

It may be said that this principle, true in itself, yet is 
dangerous, because it admits of an easy abuse, and carries 
men away into what becomes insincerity and cunning. This 
is undeniable ; to do evil that good may come, to consider that 
the means, whatever tliey are, justify the end, to sacrifice truth 
to expedience, unscrupulousness, recklessness, are grave of- 
fences. These are abuses of the Economy. But to call them 



APPENDIX. 353 

economical is to give a fine name to what occurs every day, in- 
dependent of any knowledge of the doctrine of Economy. It 
is the abuse of a rule which nature suggests to every one. 
Every one looks out for the " Mollia tempora fandi," and 
^' mollia verba" too. 

Having thus explained what is meant by the Economy as 
a rule of social intercourse between men of different religions, 
or, again, political, or social views, next I go on to state what 
I said in the Arians. 

I say in that Volume first, that our Lord has given us the 
principle in His own words, — "Cast not your pearls before 
swine ; " and that He exemplified it in His teaching by parables ; 
that St. Paul expressly distinguishes between the milk which 
is necessary for one set of men, and the strong meat which is 
allowed to others, and that in two Epistles. I say, that the 
Apostles in the Acts observe the same rule in their speeches, 
for it is a fact, that they do not preach the high doctrines of 
Christianity, but only "Jesus and the resurrection" or "re- 
pentance and faith." I also say, that this is the very reason 
that the Fathers assign for the silence of various writers in 
the first centuries on the subject of our Lord's divinity. I also 
speak of the catechetical system practised in the early Church, 
and the discipUna arcani as regards the doctrine of the Holy 
Trinity, to which Bingham bears witness ; also of the defence 
of this rule by Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and 
Theodoret. 

And next the question may be asked, whether I have said 
any thing in my Volume to guard the doctrine, thus laid down, 
from the abuse to which it is obviously exposed : and my 
answer is easy. Of course, had I had any idea that I 
should have been exposed to such hostile misrepresentations 
as it has been my lot to undergo on the subject, I should have 
made more direct avowals than I have done of my sense of 
the gravity and the danger of that abuse. Since I could not 
foresee when I wrote, that I should have been wantonly 
slandered, I only wonder that I have anticipated the charge as 
fully as will be seen in the following extracts. 



354 APPENDIX. 

" For instance, speaking of the Disciplina Arcani, I say : 
— (1) " The elementary information given to the heathen or 
catechumen was in no sense undone by the subsequent secret 
teaching, which was in fact but the filling up of a hare but cor- 
rect outline," p. 58, and I contrast this with the conduct of the 
the Manichseans, " who represented the initiatory discipline as 
founded on a fiction or hypothesis, which was to be forgotten 
by the learner as he made progress in the real doctrine of the 
Gospel." (2) As to the Allegorizing, I say that the Alex- 
andrians erred, whenever and as far as they proceeded " to 
obscure the primary meaning of Scripture, and to weaken the 
force of historical facts and express declarations," p. 69. (3) 
And that they were " more open to censure," when, on being 
" urged by objections to various passages in the history of 
the Old Testament, as derogatory to the divine perfections or 
to the Jewish Saints, they had recourse to an allegorical ex- 
planation by way of answer" p. 71. (4) I add, " J?5 is im- 
possible, to defend such a procedure, which seems to imply a 
want of faith in those who had recourse to it ; " for God has 
given us rules of right and wrong " ibid. (5) Again, I say, 
— " The abuse of the Economy in the hands of unscrupulous 
reasoners, is obvious. Even the honest controversialist or 
teacher will find it very difficult to represent, without misre- 
presenting, what it is yet his duty to present to his hearers with 
caution or reserve. Here the obvious rule to guide our prac- 
tice is, to be careful ever to maintain substantial truth in our 
use of the economical method," pp. 79, 80. (6) And so far 
from concurring at all hazards with Justin, Gregory, or Atha- 
nasius, I say, " It is plain [they] luere justified or not in their 
Economy, according as they did or did not practically mislead 
their opponents," p. 80. (7) I proceed, " It is so difficult to hit 
the mark in these perplexing cases, that it is not wonderful, 
should these or other Fathers have failed at times, and said 
more or less than was proper," ibid. 

The principle of the Economy is familiarly acted on among 
us every day. When we would persuade others, we do not 



APPENDIX. 355 

begin by treading on their toes. Men would be thought rude 
who introduced their own religious notions into mixed society, 
and were devotional in a draAving-room. Have we never 
thought lawyers tiresome who came down from the assizes and 
talked law all through dinner ? Does the same argument tell 
in the House of Commons, on the hustings, and at Exeter 
Hall ? Is an educated gentleman never worsted at an elec- 
tion by the tone and arguments of some clever fellow, who, 
whatever his shortcomings in other respects, understands the 
common people ? 

As to the Catholic Religion in England at the present day, 
this only will I observe, — that the truest expedience is to 
answer right out, when you are asked ; that the wisest econ- 
omy is to have no management ; that the best prudence is not 
to be a coward ; that the most damaging folly is to be found 
out shuffling ; and that the first of virtues is to " tell truth, and 
shame the devil." 



YIII. 

Lying and Equivocation. 

This Writer says, " Though [a lie] be a sin, the fact of its 
being a venial one seems to have gained for it as yet a very 
slight penance." — p. 46. Yet he says also that Dr. Nevrman 
takes " a perverse pleasure in eccentricities," because I say 
that " it is better for sun and moon to drop from heaven than 
that one soul should tell one wilful untruth." — p. 30. That 
is, he first accuses us without foundation of making light of a 
lie ; and, when he finds that we don't, then he calls us incon- 
sistent. I have noticed these words of mine, and two pas- 
sages besides, which he quotes above at pp. 272 — 274. Here 
I will but observe on the subject of venial sin generally, that 
he altogether forgets our doctrine of Purgatory. This punish- 
ment may last till the day of judgment ; so much for duration ; 



356 APPENDIX. 

then as to intensity, let the image of fire, by which we denote 
it, show what we think of it. Here is the expiation of venial 
sins. Yet Protestants, after the manner of this Writer, are 
too apt to play fast and loose ; to blame us because we hold 
that sin may be venial, and to blame us again when we tell 
them what w^e think will be its punishment. Blot thirty -seven. 

At the end of his Pamphlet he makes a distinction be- 
tween the Catholic clergy and gentry in England, which I 
know the latter considered to be very impertinent ; and he 
makes it apropos of a passage in one of my original letters 
in January. He quotes me as saying that " Catholics differ 
from Protestants, as to whether this or that act in particular 
is conformable to the rule of truth," p. 48 ; and then he goes 
on to observe, that I have " calumniated the Catholic gentry," 
because " there is no difference whatever, of detail or other, 
between their truthfulness and honour and the truthfulness and 
honour of the Protestant gentry among whom they live." But 
again he has garbled my words ; they run thus : 

" Truth is the same in itself and in substance, to Catholic 
and Protestant ; so is purity ; both virtues are to be referred 
to that moral sense which is the natural possession of us all. 
But, when we come to the question in detail, whether this or 
that act in particular is conformable to the rule of truth, or 
again to the rule of purity, then sometimes there is a difference 
of opinion between i7idividuals, sometimes hetween scJiools, and 
sometimes between religious communions." I knew indeed per- 
fectly well, and I confessed that *' Protestants think that the 
Catholic system, as such, leads to a lax observance of the rule of 
truth ; " but I added, " I am very sorry that they should think 
so," and I never meant myself to grant that all Protestants 
were on the strict side, and all Catholic^ on the lax. Far 
from it ; there is a stricter party as well as a laxer party 
among Catholics, there is a laxer party as well as a stricter 
party among Protestants. I have already spoken of Protest- 
ant w^riters who in certain cases allow of lying ; I have also 



APPENDIX. 357 

spoken of Catholic writers who do not allow of equivocation ; 
when I wrote " a difference of opinion between indifiduals," 
and " between schools," I meant between Protestant and Prot- 
estant, and particular instances were in my mind. I did not 
say then, or dream of saying, that Catholics, priests and laity, 
were lax on the point of lying, and that Protestants were 
strict, any more than I meant to say that all Catholics were 
pure, and all Protestants impure ; but I meant to say that, 
whereas the rule of Truth is one and the same, both to Catho- 
lic and Protestant, nevertheless some Catholics were lax, some 
strict, and again some Protestants were strict, some lax ; and 
I have already had opportunities of recording my own judg- 
ment on which side this Writer is himself^ and therefore he 
may keep his forward vindication of " honest gentlemen and 
noble ladies," who, in spite of their priests, are still so truth- 
ful, till such time as he can find a worse assailant of them 
than I am, and they no better champion of them than himself. 
And as to the Priests of England, those who know them, as 
he does not^ will pronounce them no whit inferior in this great 
virtue to the gentry, whom he says that he does ; and I can- 
not say more. Blot thirty-eight. 

Lastly, this Writer uses the following words, which I have 
more than once quoted, and with a reference to them I shall 
end my remarks upon him. " I am henceforth," he says, "in 
doubt and fear, as much as an honest man can he, concerning 
every word Dr. Newman may write. How can I tell that I 
shall not be the dupe of some cunning equivocation, of one of 
the three kinds, laid down as permissible by the blessed St. Al- 
fonso da Liguori and his pupils, even when confirmed with an 
oath . . . ? " 

I will tell him why he need not fear ; because he has left 
out one very important condition in the statement of St. Al- 
fonso, — and very applicable to my own case, even if I followed 
St. Alfonso's view of the subject. St. Alfonso says " exjustd 
oausd;" but our "honest man," as he styles himself, has 



358 APPENDIX. 

omitted these words, wMch are a key to the whole question. 
Blot thirty-nine. Here endeth our " honest man." Now for 
the subject of Lying. 

Almost all authors, Catholic and Protestant, admit, that 
luhen a just cause is present, there is some kind or other of 
verbal misleading, which is not sin. Even silence is in cer- 
tain cases virtually such a misleading, according to the Prov- 
erb, " Silence gives consent." Again, silence is absolutely 
forbidden to a Catholic, as a mortal sin, under certain circum- 
stances, e. g. to keep silence, instead of making a profession 
of faith. 

Another mode of verbal misleading, and the most direct, 
is actually saying the thing that is not ; and it is defended on 
the principle that such words are not a lie, when there is a 
" justa causa," as killing is not murder in the case of an exe- 
cutioner. 

Another ground of certain authors for saying that an un- 
truth is not a lie where there is a just cause, is, that veracity 
is a kind of justice, and therefore, when we have no duty of 
justice to tell truth to another, it is no sin not to do so. 
Hence we may say the thing that is not, to children, to mad- 
men, to men who ask impertinent questions, to those whom 
we hope to benefit by misleading. 

Another ground, taken in defending certain untruths, ex 
justd causa, as if not lies, is that veracity is for the sake of 
society, and, if in no case we might lawfully mislead others, 
we should actually be doing society great harm. 

Another nciode of verbal misleading is equivocation or a 
play upon words ; and it is defended on the view that to lie is 
to use words in a sense which they will not bear. But an 
equivocator uses them in a received sense, though there is 
another received sense, and therefore, according to this defini- 
tion, he does not lie. 

Others say that all equivocations are, after all, a kind of 
lying, faint lies or awkward lies, but still lies ; and some of 



APPENDIX. 359 

these disputants infer, that therefore we must not equivocate, 
and others that equivocation is but a half-measure, and that it 
is better to say at once that in certain cases untruths are not 
lies. 

Others will try to distinguish between evasions and equivo- 
cations ; but they Avill be answered, that, though there are 
evasions which are clearly not equivocations, yet that it is 
difficult scientifically to draw the line between them. 

To these must be aded the unscientific way of dealing with 
lies, viz., that on a great or cruel occasion a man cannot help 
telling a lie, and he would not be a man did he not tell it, but 
still it is wrong, and he ought not to do it, and he must trust 
that the sin will be forgiven him, though he goes about to com- 
mit it. It is a frailty, and had better not be anticipated, and 
not thought of again, after it is once over. This view cannot 
for a moment be defended, but, I suppose, it is very common. 

And now I think the historical cause of thought upon the 
matter has been this : the Greek Fathers thought that, when 
there was a justd causd, an untruth need not be a lie. St. 
Augustine took another view, though with great misgiving ; 
and, whether he is rightly interpreted or not, is the doctor of 
the great and common view that all untruths are lies, and that 
there can be no just cause of untruth. In these later times, 
this doctrine has been found difficult to work, and it has been 
largely taught that, though all untruth^ are lies, yet that certain 
equivocations, when there is a just cause, are not untruths. 

Further, there have been and all along through these later 
ages, other schools, running parallel with the above mentioned, 
one of which says that equivocations, &c., after all are lies, 
and another which says that there are untruths which are not 
lies. 

And now as to the "just cause," which is the condition, 
sine qua non. The Greek Fathers make them such as these, 
self-defence, charity, zeal for God's honour, and the like. 



360 APPENDIX. 

St. Augustine seems to deal with the same "just causes" 
as the Greek Fathers, even though he does not allow of their 
availableness as depriving untruths, spoken with such objects, 
of their sinfulness. He mentions defence of life and of 
honour, and the safe custody of a secret. Also the Anglican 
writers, who have followed the Greek Fathers, in defending 
untruths when there is the "just cause," consider that just 
cause to be such as the preservation of life and property, de- 
fence of law, the good of others. Moreover, their moral 
rights, e. g. defence against the inquisitive, &c. 

St. Alfonso, I consider, would take the same view of the 
"justa causa" as the Anglican divines; he speaks of it as 
" quicunque finis honestus, ad servanda bona spiritui vel cor- 
pori utilia ; " which is very much the view which they take of 
it, judging by the instances which they give. 

In all cases, however, and as contemplated by all authors, 
Clement of Alexandria, or Milton, or St. Alfonso, such a 
causa is, in fact, extreme, rare, great, or at least special. 
Thus the writer in the Melanges Th^ologiques (Liege 1852-3, 
p. 453) quotes Lessius : " Si absque justa causa fiat, est 
abusio orationis contra virtutem veritatis, et civilem consuetu- 
diuem, etsi proprie non sit mend?icium." That is, the virtue 
of truth, and the civil custom, are the measure of the just 
cause. And so Yoit, " If a man has used a reservation (re- 
strictione non pure mentali) without a grave cause, he has 
sinned gravely." And so the author himself, from whom I 
quote, and who defends the Patristic and Anglican doctrine 
that there are untruths which are not lies, says, " Under the 
name of mental reservation theologians authorize many lies, 
when there is for them a grave reason and proportionate " i. e. 
to their character. — p. 459. And so St. Alfonso, in another 
Treatise, quotes St. Thomas to the efiect, that, if from one 
cause two immediate effects follow, and, if the good effect of 
that cause is equal in value to the bad effect (bonus cequivalet 
malo) , then nothing hinders that the good may be intended 
and the evil permitted. From vfhich it will follow that, since 



APPENDIX. 361 

the evil to society from lying is very great, the just cause 
vrhich is to make it allowable, must be very great also. And 
so^ Kenrick : "It is confessed by all Catholics that, in the 
common intercourse of life, all ambiguity of language is to be 
avoided ; but it is debated whether such ambiguity is ever 
lawful. Most theologians answer in the affirmative, supposing 
a grave cause urges, and the [true] mind of the speaker can 
be collected from the adjuncts, though in fact it be not collect- 
ed." 

However, there are cases, I have already said, of another 
kind, in which Angb'can authors would think a lie allowable ; 
such as when a question is imjoertinent. Accordingly, I think 
the best word for embracing all the cases which would come 
under the " justa causa," is not " extreme," but "special," 
and I say the same as regards St. Alfonso ; and therefore, 
above in pp. 295 and 297, whether I speak of St. Alfonso or 
Paley, I should have used the word " special," or " extraordi- 
nary," not " extreme." 

What I have been saying shows what different schools of 
opinion there are in the Church in the treatment of this diffi- 
cult doctrine ; and, by consequence, that a given individual, 
such as I am, cannot agree with all, and has a full right to 
follow which he wiU. The freedom of the Schools, indeed, is 
one of those rights of reason, which the Church is too wise 
reaUy to interfere with. And this applies not to moral ques- 
tions only, but to dogmatic also. 

It is supposed by Protestants that, because St. Alfonso's 
writings have had such high commendation bestowed upon 
them by authority, therefore they have been invested with 
a quasi-infallibility. This has arisen in good measure from 
Protestants not knowing the force of theological' terms. The 
words to which they refer are the authoritative decision that 
"nothing in his works has been found worthy of censure, 
censura dignum ; " but this does not lead to the conclusions 
which have been drawn from it. Those words occur in a. 
16 



362 APPEiTOix. 

legal document, and cannot be interpreted except in a legal 
sense. In the first place, the sentence is negative ; nothing in 
St. Alfonso's writings is positively approved ; and secondly it 
is not said that there are no faults in what he has written, but 
nothing which comes under the ecclesiastical censura, which is 
something very definite. To take and interpret them, in the 
way commonly adopted in England, is the same mistake, as if 
one were to take the word " Apologia " in the English sense 
of apology, or "Infant" in law to mean a little child. 

1. Now first as to the meaning of the form of words 
viewed as a proposition. When they were brought before the 
fitting authorities at Rome by the Archbishop of Besan9on, 
the answer returned to him contained the condition that those 
words were to be interpreted, " with due regard to the mind 
of the Holy See concerning the approbation of writings of the 
servants of God, ad efiectum Canonizationis." This is in- 
tended to prevent any CathoKc taking the words about St. Al- 
fonso's works in too large a sense. Before a Saint is canon- 
ized, his works are examined and a judgment pronounced upon 
them. Pope Benedict XIV. says, " The end or scope of this 
judgment is, that it may appear, whether the doctrine of the 
servant of God, which he has brought out in his writings, is 
free from any soever theological censure." And he remarks in 
addition, " It never can be said that the doctrine of a servant 
of God is approved by the Holy See, but at most it can [only] 
be said that it is not disapproved (non reprobatam) in case 
that the Revisers had reported that there is nothing found by 
them in his works, which is adverse to the decrees of Urban 
VIII., and that the judgment of the Revisers has been ap- 
proved by the sacred Congregation, and confirmed by the Su- 
preme Pontiff." The Decree of Urban VIH. here referred to 
is, "Let works be examined, whether they contain errors 
against faith or good morals (bonos mores) , or any new doc- 
trine, or a doctrine foreign and alien to the common sense and 
custom of the Church." The author from whom I quote this 
(M. Vandenbroeck, of the diocese of Malines) observes, "It 



APPENDIX. 363 

is therefore clear, tliat the approbation of the works of the 
Holy Bishop touches not the truth of every proposition, adds 
nothing to them, nor even gives them by consequence a degree 
of intrinsic probability." He adds that it gives St. Alfonso's 
theology an extrinsic probability, from the fact that, in the 
judgment of the Holy See, no proposition deserves to receive 
a censure ; but that " that probability will cease nevertheless 
in a particular case, for any one who should be convinced, 
whether by evident arguments, or by a decree of the Holy 
See, or otherwise, that the doctrine of the Saint deviates from 
the truth." He adds, " From the fact that the approbation of 
the works of St. Alfonso does not decide the truth of each 
proposition, it follows, as Benedict XIV. has remarked, that 
we may combat the doctrine which they contain ; only, since 
a canonized saint is in question, who is honoured by a solemn 
culte in the Church, we ought not to speak except with re- 
spect, nor to attack his opinions except with temper and 
modesty." 

2. Then, as to the meaning of the word censura : Benedict 
XIV. enumerates a number of " Notes " which come under 
that name ; he says, " Out of propositions which are to be 
noted with theological censure, some are heretical, some er- 
roneous, some close upon error, some savouring of heresy," 
and so on ; and each of these terms has its own definite mean- 
ing. Thus by " erroneous " is meant, according to Viva, a 
proposition which is not immediately opposed to a revealed 
proposition, but only to a theological conclusion drawn from 
premisses which are de fide ; " savouring of heresy," when a 
proposition is opposed to a theological conclusion not evidently 
drawn from premisses which are de fide^ but most probably 
and according to the common mode of theologizing, and so 
with the rest. Therefore Avhen it was said by the Revisers of 
St. Alfonso's works that they were not " worthy of censure," 
it was only meant that they did not fall under these particular 
Notes. 

But the answer from Rome to the Archbishop of Besan90bi 



364 APPENDIX. 

went furtlier than this ; it actually took pains to declare that 
any one who pleased might follow other theologians instead of 
St. Alfonso. After saying that no Priest was to be interfered 
with who followed St. Alfonso in the confessional, it added, 
" This is said, however, without on that account judging that 
they are reprehended who follow opinions handed down by 
other approved authors." 

And this too, I will observe, that St. Alfonso made many 
changes of opinion himself in the course of his writings ; and it 
could not for an instant be supposed that we were bound to 
every one of his opinions, when he did not feel himself bound 
to them in his own person. And, what is more to the pur- 
pose still, there are opinions, or some opinion, of his which 
actually has been proscribed by the Church since, and cannot 
now be put forward or used. I do not pretend to be a well- 
read theologian myself, but I say this on the authority of a the- 
ological professor of Breda, quoted in the Melanges Theol. for 
1850-1. He says : "It may happen, that, in the course of 
time, errors may be found in the works of St. Alfonso and be 
proscribed by the Church, a thing which in fact has already oc- 
curred." 

In not ranging myself then with those who consider that it 
is justifiable to use words in a double sense, that is, to equivo- 
cate, I put myself, first, under the protection of Cardinal Ger- 
dil, who, in a work lately published at Home, has the following 
passage, which I owe to the kindness of a friend : 

Gerdil. 

"In an oath one ought to have respect to the intention of 
the party swearing, and the intention of the party to whom the 
oath is taken. Whoso swears binds himself in virtue of the 
words, not according to the sense he retains in his own mind, 
but in the sense according to which he perceives that they are un- 
derstood hy him to whom the oath is made. When the mind of 
the one is discordant with the mind of the other, if this hap- 



APPENDIX. 365 

pens by deceit or clieat of the party swearing, he is bound to 
observe the oath according to the right sense (sana mente) of 
the party receiving it ; but, when the discrepancy in the sense 
comes of misunderstanding, without deceit of the party swear- 
ing, in that case he is not bound, except to that which he had 
in mind to wish to be bound. It follows hence, that whoso 
uses mental reservation or equivocation in the oath, in order to 
deceive the party. to whom he offers it, sins most grievously, 
and is always bound to observe the oath in the sense in which 
he knew that his words were taken by the other party, according 
to the decision of St. Augustine, ' They are perjured, who, 
having kept the words, have deceived the expectations of those 
to whom the oath was taken.' He who swears externally, 
without the inward intention of swearing, commits a most 
grave sin, and remains all the same under the obligation to ful- 
fil it. ... In a word, all that is contrary to good faith, is 
iniquitous, and by introducing the name of God the iniquity is 
aggravated by the guilt of sacrilege." 

Natalis Alexander. 

"They certainly lie, who utter the words of an oath, and 
without the will to swear or bind themselves ; or who make 
use of mental reservations and equivocations in swearing, since 
they signify by words what they have not in mind, contrary 
to the end for which language was instituted, viz., as signs of 
ideas. Or they mean something else than the words signify in 
themselves, and the common custom of speech, and the cir- 
cumstances of persons and business matters ; and thus they 
abuse words which were instituted for the cherishing of so- 
ciety." 

Contenson, 

" Hence is apparent how worthy of condemnation is the 
temerity of those half-taught men, who give a colour to lies 
and equivocations by the words and instances of Christ. Than 



366 APPENDIX. 

whose doctrine, which is an art of deceiving, nothing can be 
more pestilent. And that, both because what you do not wish 
done to yourself, you should not do another ; now the patrons 
of equivocations and mental reservations would not like to be 
themselves deceived by others, &c. . . . and also because St. 
Augustine, &c. ... In truth, as there is no pleasant living 
with those whose language we do not understand, and, as St. 
Augustine teaches, a man would more readily live with his 
dog than with a foreigner, less pleasant certainly is our con- 
verse with those who make use of frauds artificially covered, 
overreach their hearers by deceit, address them insidiously, 
observe the right moment, and catch at words to their purpose, 
by which truth is hidden under a covering ; and so on the other 
hand nothing is sweeter than the society of those, who both 
love and speak the naked truth, . . . without their mouth pro- 
fessing one thing and their mind hiding another, or spreading 
before it the cover of double words. Nor does it matter that 
they colour their lies with the name of equivocations or mental 
reservations. For Hilary says, ' The sense, not the speech, 
makes the crime.' " 

Concina allows of what I shall presently call evasions, but 
nothing beyond, if I understand him ; but he is most vehement 
against mental reservation of every kind, so I quote him. 

Concina. 

" That mode of speech, which some theologians call pure 
mental reservation, others call reservation not simply mental ; 
that language which to me is lying, to the greater part of 
recent authors is only amphibological. ... I have discovered 
that nothing is adduced by more recent theologians for the 
lawful use of amphibologies which has not been made use of 
already by the ancients, whether philosophers or some Fathers, 
in defence of lies. Nor does there seem to me other difference 
when I consider their respective grounds, except that the an- 
cients frankly called those modes of speech lies, and the more 



APPENDIX. 36 Y 

recent writers, not a few of them, call them amphibological, 
equivocal, and material." 

In another place he quotes Caramuel, so I suppose I may- 
do so too, for the very reason that his theological reputation 
does not place him on the side of strictness. Concina says, 
" Caramuel himself, who bore away the palm from all others 
in relaxing the evangelical and natural law, says, 

Caramuel. 

" I have an innate aversion to mental reservations. If they 
are contained within the bounds of piety and sincerity, then 
they are not necessary ; . . . but if [otherwise] they are the 
destruction of human society and sincerity, and are to be con- 
demned as pestilent. Once admitted, they open the way to all 
lying, all perjury. And the whole difference in the matter is, 
that what yesterday was called a lie, changing not its nature 
and malice, but its name, is to-day entitled ' mental reserva- 
tion ; ' and this is to sweeten poison with sugar, and to colour 
guilt with the appearance of virtue." 

St. Thomas. 

"When the sense of the party swearing, and of the party 
to whom he swears, is not the same, if this proceeds from the 
deceit of the former, the oath ought to be kept according to 
the right sense of the party to whom it is made. But if the 
party swearing does not make use of deceit, then he is bound 
according to his own sense." 

St. Isadore, 

" With whatever artifice of words a man swears, neverthe- 
less God who is witness of his conscience, so takes the oath as 
he understands it, to whom it is sworn. And he becomes 
twice guilty, who both takes the name of God in vain, and de- 
ceives his neighbour." 



368 APPENDIX, 

St. Augustine. 

" I do not question that this is most justly laid down, that 
the promise of an oath must be fulfilled, not according to the 
words of the party taking it, but according to the expectation 
of the party to whom it is taken, of which he who takes it is 
aware." 

And now, under the protection of these authorities, I say 
as follows : — 

Casuistry is a noble science, but it is one to which I am 
led, neither by my abilities nor my turn of mind. Independ- 
ently, then, of the difiiculties of the subject, and the necessity, 
before forming an opinion, of knowing more of the arguments 
of theologians upon it than I do, I am very unwilling to say a 
word here on the subject of Lying and Equivocation. But I 
consider myself bound to speak ; and therefore, in this strait, 
I can do nothing better, even for my own relief, than submit 
myself and what I shall say to the judgment of the Church, and 
to the consent, so far as in this matter there be a consent, of 
the Schola Theologorum. 

Now, in the case of one of those special and rare exigen- 
cies or emergencies, which constitute the justa causa of dis- 
sembling or misleading, whether it be extreme as the defence 
of life, or a duty as the custody of a secret, or of a personal 
nature as to repel an impertinent inquirer, or a matter too 
trivial to provoke question, as in dealing with children or mad- 
men, there seem to be four courses : — 

1. To say the thing that is not. Here I draw the reader's 
attention to the words material and formal. " Thou shalt not 
kill ; " murder is the formal transgression of this command- 
ment, but accidental homicide is the material transgression. 
The matter of the act is the same in both cases ; but in the 
homicide, there is nothing more than the act, whereas in mur- 
der there must be the intention, &c., which constitute the 
formal sin. So, again, an executioner commits the material act, 
but not that formal killing which is a breach of the command- 



APPENDIX. 369 

ment. So a man, who, simply to save himself from starving, 
takes a loaf which is not his own, commits only the material, 
not the formal act of stealing, that is, he does not commit a sin. 
And so a baptized Christian, external to the Church, who is in 
invincible ignorance, is a material heretic, and not a formal. 
And in like manner, if to say the thing which is not be in spe- 
cial cases lawful, it may be called a material lie. 

The first mode then which has been suggested of meeting 
those special cases, in which to mislead by words has a suffi- 
cient object, or has a just cause^ is by a material lie. 

The second mode is by an cequivocatio^ which is not equiva- 
lent to the English word " equivocation," but means sometimes 
a jplay upon ivords, sometimes an evasion. 

2. A play upon words. St. Alfonso certainly says that a 
play upon words is allowable ; and, speaking under correction, 
I should say that he does so on the ground that lying is not a 
sin against justice, that is, against our neighbour, but a sin 
against God ; because words are the signs of ideas, and there- 
fore if a word denotes two ideas, we are at liberty to use it in 
either of its senses : but I think I must be incorrect here in 
some respect, because the Catechism of the Council, as I have 
quoted it at p. 302, says, " Yanitate et mendacio fides ac Veri- 
tas toUuntur, arctissima vincula societatis humanoe ; quibus 
sublatis, sequitur summa vitae confusio^ ut homines nihil a 
dcemonihus differre videantur." 

3. Evasion; — when, for instance, the speaker diverts the 
attention of the hearer to another subject ; suggests an irrele- 
vant fact or makes a remark, which confuses him and gives 
him something to think about ; throws dust into his eyes ; 
states some truth, from which he is quite sure his hearer will 
draw an illogical and untrue conclusion, and the like. Bishop 
Butler seems distinctly to sanction such a proceeding, in a pas- 
sage which I shall extract below. 

The greatest school of evasion, I speak seriously, is the 
House of Commons ; and necessarily so, from the nature of the 
case. And the hustings is another. 
16* 



/ 



370 APPENDIX. 

An instance is supplied in the history of St. Athanasius : 
he was in a boat on the Nile, flying persecution ; and he found 
himself pursued. On this he ordered his men to turn his boat 
round, and ran right to meet the satellites of Julian. They 
asked him. Have you seen Athanasius ? and he told his follow- 
ers to answer, " Yes, he is close to you." They went on their 
course, and he ran into Alexandria, and there lay hid till the 
end of the persecution. 

I gave another instance above, in reference to a doctrine 
of religion. The early Christians did their best to conceal 
their Creed on account of the misconceptions of the heathen 
about it. Were the question asked of them, " Do you 
worship a Trinity?" and did they answer, "We worship 
one God, and none else ; " the inquirer might, or would, 
infer that they did not acknowledge the Trinity of Divine 
Persons. 

It is very difficult to draw the line between these evasions, 
and what are commonly called in English equivocations ; and 
of this difficulty, again, I think, the scenes ia the House of 
Commons supply us with illustrations. 

4. The fourth method is silence. For instance, not giving 
the whole truth in a court of law. If St. Alban, after dress- 
ing himself in the Priest's clothes, and being taken before the 
persecutor, had been able to pass off for his friend, and so 
gone to martydom without being discovered ; and had he in 
the course of examination answered all questions truly, but not 
given the whole truth, the most important truth, that he was 
the wrong person, he would have come very near to telling a 
lie, for a half-truth is often a falsehood. And his defence 
must have been the justa causa, viz., either that he might 
in charity or for religion's sake save a priest, or again 
that the judge had no right to interrogate him on the 
subject. 

Now, of these four modes of misleading others by the 
tongue, when there is a justa causa (supposing there can be 
such), — a material lie, that is an untruth which is not a lie, 



APPENDIX. 3Y1 

an equivocation, an evasion, and silence, — ^First, I have no 
difficulty whatever in recognizing as allowable the method of 
silence. 

Secondly, But, if I allow of silence, why not of the method 
of material lying, since half of a truth is often a lie ? And, 
again, if all killing be not murder, nor all taking from another 
stealing, why must all untruths be lies ? Now I will say 
freely that I think it difficult to answer this question, whether 
it be urged by St. Clement or by Milton ; at the same time, I 
never have acted, and I think, when it came to the point, I 
never should act upon such a theory myself, except in one 
case, stated below. This I say for the benefit of those who 
speak hardly of Catholic theologians, on the ground that they 
admit text-books which allow of equivocation. They are 
asked. How can we trust you, when such are your views ? but 
such views, as I already have said, need not have anything to 
do with their own practice, merely from the circumstance that 
they are contained in their text-books. A theologian draws 
out a system ; he does it partly as a scientific speculation : 
but much more for the sake of others. He is lax for the sake 
of others, not of himself. His own standard of action is much 
higher than that which he imposes upon men in general. One 
special reason why religious men, after drawing out a theory, 
are unwilling to act upon it themselves, is this : that they 
practically acknowledge a broad distinction between their rea- 
son and their conscience ; and that they feel the latter to be 
the safer guide, though the former may be the clearer, nay even 
though it be the truer. They would rather be wrong with 
their conscience, than right with their reason. And again 
here is this more tangible difficulty in the case of exceptions 
to the rule of Veracity, that so very little external help is 
given us in drawing the line, as to when untruths are allowa- 
ble and when not ; whereas that sort of killing which is not 
murder, is most definitely marked off by legal enactments, so 
that it cannot possibly be mistaken for such killing as is mur- 
der. On the other hand the cases of exemption from the rule 



372 APPENDIX. 

of Veracity are left to the private judgment of the individual, 
and he may easily be led on from acts which are allowable to 
acts which are not. Now this remark does not apply to such 
acts as are related in Scripture, as being done by a particular 
inspiration, for in such cases there is a command. If I had 
my own way, I would oblige society, that is, its great men, 
its lawyers, its divines, its literature, publicly to acknowledge, 
as such, those instances of untruth which are not lies, as for 
instance, untruths in war ; and then there could be no danger 
in them to the individual Catholic, for he would be acting 
under a rule. 

Thirdly, as to playing upon words, or equivocation, I sup- 
pose it is from the English habit, but, without meaning any 
disrespect to a great Saint, or wishing to set myself up, or 
taking my conscience for more than it is worth, I can only say 
as a fact, that I admit it as little as the rest of my country- 
men : and, without any reference to the right and the wrong 
of the matter, of this I am sure, that, if there is one thing 
more than another which prejudices Englishmen against the 
Catholic Church, it is the doctrine of great authorities on the 
subject of equivocation. For myself, I can fancy myself think- 
ing it was allowable in extreme cases for me to lie, but never 
to equivocate. Luther said, " Pecca fortiter." I anathema- 
tize the formal sentiment, but there is a truth in it, when spoken 
of material acts. 

Fourthly, I think evasion^ as I have described it, to be 
perfectly allowable ; indeed, I do not know, who does not 
use it, under circumstances ; but that a good deal of moral 
danger is attached to its use ; and that, the cleverer a man 
is, the more likely he is to pass the line of Christian 
duty. 

But it may be said, that such decisions do not meet the 
particular difficulties for which provision is required ; let us 
then take some instances. 

1. I do not think it right to tell lies to children, even on 



APPENDIX. 3Y3 

this account, that they are sharper than we think them, and 
will soon find out what we are doing ; and our example will 
be a very hard training for them. And so of equivocation : it 
is easy of imitation, and we ourselves shall be sure to get the 
worst of it in the end. 

2. If an early Father defends the patriarch Jacob in his 
mode of gaining his father's blessing, on the ground that the 
blessing was divinely pledged to him already, that it was his, 
and that his father and brother were acting at once against his 
own rights and the divine will, it does not follow from this 
that such conduct is a pattern to us, who have no supernatural 
means of determining when an untruth becomes a material^ and 
not a formal lie. It seems to me very dangerous, be it allowa- 
ble or not, to lie or equivocate in order to preserve some great 
temporal or spiritual benefit, nor does St. Alfonso here say any 
thing to the contrary, for he is not discussing the question of 
danger or expedience. 

3. As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you which 
way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such 
a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to 
knock the man down, and to call out for the police ; and next, 
if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the 
ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself, 
I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not 
think that he would have told a lie. 

4. A secret is a more difficult case. Supposing something 
has been confided to me in the strictest secrecy, which could 
not be revealed without great disadvantage to another, what 
am I to do ? If I am a lawyer, I am protected by my pro- 
fession. I have a right to treat with extreme indignation any 
question which trenches on the inviolability of my position ; 
but, supposing I was driven up into a corner, I think I should 
*have a right to say an untruth, or that, under such circum- 
stances, a lie would be material^ but it is almost an impossible 
case, for the law would defend me. In like manner, as a 
priest, I should think it lawful to speak as if I knew nothing 



374 APPENDIX. 

of what passed in confession. And I think in these cases I 
do in fact possess that guarantee, that I am not going by pri- 
vate judgment, which just now I demanded ; for society- 
would bear me out, whether as a lawyer or as a priest, that I 
had a duty to my client or penitent, such, that an untruth in 
the matter was not a lie. A common type of this permissible 
denial, be it material lie or evasion, is at the moment supplied 
to me : an artist asked a Prime Minister, who was sitting to 
him, " What news, my Lord, from France?" He answered, 
'' I do not know ; I have not read the Papers." 

5. A more difficult question is, when to accept confidence 
has not been a duty. Supposing a man wishes to keep the 
secret that he is the author of a book, and he is plainly asked 
on the subj ect. Here I should ask the previous question, whether 
any one has a right to publish what he dare not avow. It re- 
quires to have traced the bearings and results of such a prin- 
ciple, before being sure of it ; but certainly, for myself, I am 
no friend of strictly anonymous writing. Next, supposing 
another has confided to you the secret of his authorship : there 
are persons who would have no scruple at all in giving a 
denial to impertinent questions asked them on the subject. I 
have heard a great man in his day at Oxford, warmly contend, 
as if he could not enter into any other view of the matter, that, 
if he had been trusted by a friend with the secret of his being 
author of a certain book, and he were asked by a third person, 
if his friend was not (as he really was) the author of it, he 
ought without any scruple and distinctly to answer that he 
did not know. He had an existing duty towards the author ; 
he had none towards his inquirer. The author had a claim 
on him ; an impertinent questioner had none at all. But here 
again I desiderate some leave, recognized by society, as in the 
case of the formulas " Not at home," and " Not guilty," in 
order to give me the right of saying what is a material 
untruth. And moreover, I should here also ask the previous 
question. Have I any right to accept such a confidence ? have 
I any right to make such a promise ? and, if it be an unlawful 



APPENDIX. 375 

promise, is it binding at the expense of a lie ? I am not 
attempting to solve these difficult questions, but they have to 
be carefully examined. 

As I put into print some weeks ago various extracts from 
authors relating to the subject which I have been considering, 
I conclude by inserting them here, though they will not have 
a very methodical appearance. 

For instance, St. Dorotheus : " Sometimes the necessity of 
some matter urges (incumbit), which, unless you somewhat con- 
ceal and dissemble it, will turn into a greater trouble." And 
he goes on to mention the case of saving a man who has com- 
mitted homicide from his pursuers : and he adds that it is not 
a thing that can be done often, but once in a long time. 

St. Clement in like manner speaks of it only as a necessity, 
and as a necessary medicine. 

Origen, after saying that God's commandment makes it a 
plain duty to speak the truth, adds, that a man, " when neces- 
sity urges," may avail himself of a lie, as medicine, that is, to 
the extent of Judith's conduct towards Holofernes ; and he 
adds that that necessity may be the obtaining of a great good, 
as Jacob hindered his father from giving the blessing to Esau 
against the will of God. . 

Cassian says, that the use of a lie, in order to be allowable, 
must be like the use of hellebore, which is itself poison, unless 
a man has a fatal disease on him. He adds, " Without the 
condition of an extreme necessity, it is a present ruin." 

St. John Chrysostom defends Jacob on the ground that his 
deceiving his father was not done for the sake of temporal gain, 
but in order to fulfil the providential purpose of God ; and he 
says, that, as Abraham was not a murderer, though he was 
minded to kill his son, so an untruth need not be a lie. And 
he adds, that often such a deceit is the greatest possible bene- 
fit to the man who is deceived, and therefore allowable. Also 
St. Hilary, St. John Climacus, &c., in Thomassin, Concina, the 
Melanges^ &c. 



376 APPEKDIX. 

Various modern Catholic divines hold this doctrine of the 
" material lie" also. I will quote three passages in point. 

Cataneo : " Be it then well understood, that the obligation 
to veracity, that is, of conforming our words to the sentiments 
of our mind, is founded principally upon the necessity of human 
intercourse, for which reason they (i. e. words) ought not and 
cannot be lawfully opposed to this end, so just, so necessary, 
and so important, without which the world would become a 
Babylon of confusion. And this would in a great measure be 
really the result, as often as a man should be unable to defend 
secrets of high importance, and other evils would follow, even 
worse than confusion, in their nature destructive of this very 
intercourse between man and man for which speech was insti- 
tuted. Everybody must see the advantage a hired assassin 
would have, if supposing he did not knqw by sight the person 
he was commissioned to kill, I being asked by the rascal at 
the moment he was standing in doubt with his gun cocked, 
were obliged to approve of his deed by keeping silence, or to 
hesitate, or lastly to answer ' Yes, that is the man.' [Then 
follow other similar cases.] In such and similar cases, in 
which your sincerity is unjustly assailed, when no other way 
more prompt or more ef&cacious presents itself, and when it is 
not enough to say, ' I do not know,' let such persons be met 
openly with a downright resolute ' No ' without thinking upon 
any thing else. For such a ' No ' is conformable to the uni- 
versal opinion of men, who are the judges of words, and who 
certainly have not placed upon them obligations to the injury 
of the Human Republic, nor ever entered into a compact to 
use them in behalf of rascals, spies, incendiaries, and thieves. 
I repeat that such a ' No' is conformable to the universal mind 
of man, and with this mind your own mind ought to be in 
union and alliance. Who does not see the manifest advantage 
which highway robbers would derive, were travellers, when 
asked* if they had gold, jewels, &c., obliged either to invent 
tergiversations or to answer ' Yes, we have?' Accordingly in 
such circumstances that 'No' which you utter [see Card. 



APPENDIX. 377 

Pallav. lib. iii. c. xi. n. 23. de Fide, Spe, &;c.] remains de- 
prived of its proper meaning, and is like a piece of coin, from 
which by the command of the government the current value 
has been withdrawn, so that by using it you become in no 
sense guilty of lying." 

Bolgeni says : " We have therefore proved satisfactorily, 
and with more than moral certainty, that an excejption occurs 
to the general law of not speaking untruly, viz., when it is im- 
possible to observe a certain other prScept, more important, 
without telling a lie. Some persons indeed say, that in the 
cases of impossibility which are above drawn out, what is said 
is not a lie. But a man who thus speaks confuses ideas and 
denies the essential character of things. What is a lie ? It is 
' locutio contra mentem ; ' this is its common definition. But in 
the cases of impossibility, a man speaks contra mentem ; that is 
clear and evident. Therefore he tells a lie. Let us distinguish 
between the lie and the sin. In the above cases, the man 
really tells a lie, but this lie is not a sin, by reason of the ex- 
isting impossibility. To say that in those cases no one has a 
right to ask, that the words have a meaning according to the 
common consent of men, and the like, as is said by certain 
authors in order in those cases to exempt the lie from sin, this 
is to commit oneself to frivolous excuses, and to subject one- 
self to a number of retorts, when there is the plain reason of 
the above-mentioned fact of impossibility." 

And the Author in the Melanges Theologiques : " We have 
then gained this truth, and it is a conclusion of which we have 
not the smallest doubt, that if the intention of deceiving our 
neighbour is essential to a lie, it is allowable in certain cases 
to say what we know to be false, as e. g. to escape from a 
great danger. . . . 

" But, let no one be alarmed, it is never allowable to lie ; 
in this we are in perfect agreement with the whole body of 
theologians. The only point in which we differ from them is 
in what we mean by a lie. They call that a lie which is not 
such in our view, or rather, if you will, what in our view is 



378 APPENDIX. 

only a material lie they account to be both formal and ma- 
terial." 

Now to come to Anglican authorities. 

Taylor : " Whether it can in any case be lawful to tell a 
lie ? To this I answer, that the Holy Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament do indefinitely and severely forbid l3ang. 
Prov. xiii. 5 ; xxx. 8. Ps. v. 6. John viii. 44. Col. iii. 9 ; 
Rev. xxi. 8, 27. Beyond these things, nothing can be said in 
condemnation of lying. 

" But then lying is to be understood to be something said or 
written to the hurt of our neighbour, which cannot be understood 
otherwise than to differ from the mind of him that speaks. 
' A lie is petulantly or from a desire of hurting, to say one 
thing, or to signify it by gesture, and to think another thing : '* 
so Melancthon, ' To lie is to deceive our neighbour to his 
hurt.' For in this sense a lie is naturally or intrinsically evil ; 
that is, to speak a lie to our neighbour is naturally evil .... 
not because it is different from an eternal truth. . . . A lie is 
an injury to our neighbour. . . . There is in mankind a uni- 
versal contract implied in all their intercourses. . . . In justice 
we are bound to speak, so as that our neighbour do not lose 
his right, which by our speaking we give him to the truth, that 
is, in our heart. And of a lie, thus defined, which is injurious 
to our neighbour, so long as his right to truth remains, it is 
that St. Austin affirms it to be simply unlawful, and that it 
can in no case be permitted, nisi forte regulas quasdam daturus 
es. . . . If a lie be unjust, it can never become lawful ; but, 
if it can be separate from injustice, then it may be innocent. 
Here then I consider — 

" This right, though it be regularly and commonly belong- 
ing to all men, yet it may be taken away by a superior right 
intervening ; or it may be lost, or it may be hindered, or it may 
cease, upon a greater reason. 

" Therefore upon this account it was lawful for the chil- 

* Mendacium est petulanter, aut cupiditate noncendi, aliud loqui, seu 
gestu significare, et aliud sentire.'* 



APPENDIX. 3Y9 

dren of Israel to borrow jewels of the Egyptians, which sup- 
jooses a promise of restitution, though they intended not to pay 
them hack again. God gave commandment so to spoil them, 
and the Egyptians were divested of their rights, and were to be 
used like enemies. 

" It is lawful to tell a lie to children or to madmen ; because 
they, having no powers of judging, have no right to truth ; but 
then, the lie must he charitable and useful. . . . If a lie be told, 
it must be such as is for their good . . . and so do physicians 
to their patients. . . . This and the like were so usual, so 
permitted to physicians, that it grew to a proverb, ' You lie 
like a doctor ; '* which yet was always to be understood in the 
way of charity, and with honour to the profession. ... To 
tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, 
of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath 
not only been done at all times, but commended by great and 
wise and good men. . . . Who would not save his father's 
life ... at the charge of a harmless lie, from the rage of per- 
secutors or tyrants? . . . When the telling of a truth will 
certainly be the cause of evil to a man, though he have right 
to truth, yet it must not be given to him to his harm. . . . 
Every truth is no more justice, than every restitution of a 
straw to the right owner is a duty. ' Be not over-righteous,' 
says Solomon. ... If it be objected, that we must not tell a 
lie for God, therefore much less for our brother, I answer, 
that it does not follow ; for God needs not a lie, but our brother 
does. . . . Deceiving the enemy by the stratagem of actions 
or words, is not properly lying ; for this supposes a conversa- 
tion, of law or peace, trust or promise explicit or implicit. A 
lie is a deceiving of a trust or confidence." — Taylor, vol. xiii., 
pp. 351-371, ed. Heber. 

It is clear that Taylor thought that veracity was one branch 

of justice ; a social virtue ; under the second table of the law, 

not under the first ; only binding, when those to whom we 

speak have a claim of justice upon us, which ordinarily all 

* Mentiris ut medicus. 



380 APPENDIX. 

men have. Accordingly, in cases where a neighbour has no 
claim of justice upon us, thg^^e is no opportunity of exercising 
veracity, as, for instance, when he is mad, or is deceived by us 
for his own advantage. And hence, in such cases, a lie is 
not really a lie, as he says in one place, " Deceiving the enemy 
is not properly lying." Here he seems to make that distinction 
common to Catholics ; viz., between what they call a material 
act and a formal act. Thus Taylor would maintain, that to 
say the thing that is not to a madman, has the meatier of a lie, 
but the man who says it as little tells a formal lie, as the judge, 
sheriff, or executioner murders the man whom he certainly kills 
by forms of law. 

Other English authors take precisely the same view, viz., 
that veracity is a kind of justice, — that our neighbour generally 
has a right to have the truth told him ; but that he may forfeit 
that right, or lose it for the time, and then to say the thing 
that is not to him is no sin against veracity, that is, no lie. 
Thus Milton says,* " Veracity is a virtue, by which we speak 
true things to him to whom it is equitable, and concerning what 
things it is suitable for the good of our neighbour, . . . All 
dissimulation is not wrong, for it is not necessary for us always 
openly to bring out the truth ; that only is blamed which is 
malicious. ... I do not see why that cannot be said of lying 
which can be said of homicide and other matters, which are 
not weighed so much by the deed as by the ohject and end of 
acting. What man in his senses will deny that there are those 
whom we have the best of grounds for considering that we 
ought to deceive, — ^as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, 
enemies, men in error, thieves ? ... Is it a point of conscience 
not to deceive them? ... I would ask, by which of the com- 
mandments is a lie forbidden ? You will say, by the ninth. 
Come, read it out, and you will agree with me. For what- 
ever is here forbidden comes under the head of injuring one's 
neighbour. If then any lie does not injure one's neighbour, 

* The Latin original is given at the end of the Appendix. 



APPENDIX. 381 

certainly it is not forbidden by this commandment. It is on 
this ground that, by the judgment of theologians, we shall ac- 
quit so many holy men of lying. Abraham, who said to his 
servants that he would return with his son ; . . . the wise man 
understood that it did not matter to his servants to know [that 
his son would not return], and that it was at the moment ex- 
pedient for himself that they should not know. . . . Joseph 
would be a man of many lies if the common definition of lying 
held ; [also] Moses, Rahab, Ehud, Jael, Jonathan." Here 
again veracity is due only on the score of justice towards the 
person whom we speak with ; and if he has no claim upon us 
to speak the truth, we need not speak the truth to him. 

And so, again, Paley : " A lie is a breach of promise; for 
whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another tacitly 
promises to speak the truth, because he knows that the truth is 
expected. Or the obligation of veracity may be made out from 
the direct ill consequences of lying to social happiness. . . . 
There are falsehoods which are not lies ; that is, which are not 
criminal." (Here, let it be observed, is the same distinction 
as in Taylor between material and formal untruths.) "1. 

When no one is deceived 2. When the person to whom 

you speak has no right to know the truth, or, more properly, 
when little or no inconveniency results from the want of con- 
fidence in such cases, as where you tell a falsehood to a madman 
for his own advantage ; to a robber, to conceal your property ; 
to an assassin, to defeat or divert him from his purpose. . . . 
It is upon this principle that, by the laws of war, it is allowable 
to deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, false intelli- 
gence. . . . Many people indulge, in serious discourse, a habit 
of fiction or exaggeration. ... So long as . . . their narratives, 
though false, are inoffensive, it may seem a superstitious regard 
to truth to censure them merely for truth's sake." Then he 
goes on to mention reasons against such a practice, adding, "I 
have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that 
could be trusted in matters of importance." — ^Works, vol. iv., 
p. 123. 



382 APPENDIX. 

Dr. Jolinsoii, who, if any one, has the reputation of being 
a sturdy moralist, thus speaks : — 

" We talked," says Boswell, " of the casuistical question, — 
whether it was allowable at any time to depart from truth J^ 
Johnson. " The general rule is, that truth should never be 
violated ; because it is of the utmost importance to the com- 
fort of life, that we should have a full security by mutual 
faith ; and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suf- 
fered, that we may preserve it. There must, however, be 
some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you 
which way a man is gone, you may tell him what is not true, 
because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a 
man to a murderer." Boswell. " Supposing the person who 
wrote Junius were asked whether he was the author, might 
he deny it?" Johnson. "I don't know what to say to this. 
If you were sure that he wrote Junius, would you, if he denied 
it, think as well of him afterwards ? Yet it may be urged, that 
what a man has no right to ask, you may refuse to communi- 
cate ; and there is no other effectual mode of preserving -a 
secret, and an important secret, the discovery of which may be 
very hurtful to you, but a flat denial ; for if you are silent, or 
hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. 
But stay, sir ; here is another case. Supposing the author had 
told me confidentially that he had written Junius, and I were 
asked if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to deny it,' as 
being under a previous promise, express or implied, to conceal 
it. Now what I ought to do for the author, may I not do for 
myself? But I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick 
man for fear of alarming him. You have no business with 
consequences ; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are not 
sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may 
have ; it may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure 
him. Of all lying I have the greatest abhorrence of this, be- 
cause I believe it has been frequently practised on myself." — 
Boswell's Life, vol. iv., p. 277 



APPENDIX. 383 

There are English authors who allow of mental reservation 
and equivocation ; such is Jeremy Taylor. 

He says, " In the same cases in which it is lawful to tell 
a lie, in the same cases it is lawful to use a mental reserva- 
tion."— Ibid., p. 374. 

He says, too, "When the things are true in several senses, 
the not explicating in what sense I mean the words, is not a 
criminal reservation. . . . But 1. this liberty is not to be used 
by inferiors, but by superiors only ; 2. not by those that are 
interrogated, but by them which speak voluntarily ; 3. not by 
those which speak of duty, but which speak of grace and kind- 
ness."— Ibid., p. 378. 

Bishop Butler, the first of Anglican authorities, writing in 
his grave and abstract way, seems to assert a similar doc- 
trine in the following passage : — 

" Though veracity, as well as justice, is to be our rule of 
life, it must be added, otherwise a snare wiU be laid in the way 
of some plain men, that the use of common forms of speech 
generally understood, cannot be falsehood ; and, in general, 
that there can be no designed falsehood without designing to 
deceive. It must likewise be observed, that, in numberless cases, 
a man may he under the strictest obligations to what he foresees 
will deceive, without his intending it. For it is impossible not to 
foresee, that the words and actions of men in different ranks 
and employments, and of different educations, will perpetually 
be mistaken by each other ; and it cannot but be so, whilst they 
will judge with the utmost carelessness, as they daily do, of 
what they are not perhaps enough informed to be competent judges 
of, even though they considered it with great attention." — 
Nature of Virtue, fin. These last words seem in a measure to 
answer to the words in Scavini, that an equivocation is per- 
missible, because " then we do not deceive our neighbour, but 
allow him to deceive himself." In thus speaking, I have not 
the slightest intention of saying any thing disrespectful to 
Bishop Butler ; and still less of course to St. Alfonso. 

And a third author, for whom I have a great respect as 



384' APPENDIX. 

different from the above two as they are from each other, bears 
testimony to the same effect in his " Comment on Scripture," 
Thomas Scott. He maintains indeed that Ehud and Jael were 
divinely directed in what they did ; but they could have no 
divine direction for what was in itself wrong. 

Thus on Judges iii., 15-21 : 

" ' And Ehud said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O 
king ; I have a message from God unto thep, and Ehud thrust 
the dagger into his belly.' Ehud, indeed," says Scott, " had a 
secret errand, a message from God unto him ; hut it was of a 
far different nature than Eglon ex'pected" 

And again on Judges iv., 18-21 : 

" ' And Jael said, Turn in, my lord, fear not. And he said 
to her. When any man doth inquire. Is there any man here ? 
thou shalt say, No. Then Jael took a nail, and smote the nail 
into his temple.' Jael," says Scott, " is not said to have 
promised Sisera that she would deny his being there ; she 
would give him shelter and refreshment, but not utter a false- 
hood to oblige him." 



NOTES 



The following are the originals of some of the passages 
translated under this last Head : — 

Gerdil. 
" Nel giuramento si dee riguardare rintenzione di chi giura, e rintenzione 
di quello a cui si presta il giuramento. Chicunque giura si obbliga in virtii 
delle parole non secondo il senso ch' egli si ritiene in mente, ma nel senso 
seeondo cui egli cognosce che sono intese da quello a cui si fa il giuramento. 
Allorch^ la mente dell' uno h discordante daUa mente dell' altro, se ci5 
awiene per dolo e inganno del, giurante, questi h obbligato ad osservare il 
giuramento secondo la sana mente di cM la ha ricevuto; ma quando la 
discrepanza nel senso proviene da mala intelligenza senza dolo di chi giura, 
in quel caso egli non e obbligato se non a cio che avea in mente di volersi 
obbhgare. Da cio segue che chiunque usa restrizione mentale o equivo- 
cazione nel giuramento per ingannare la parte cui egli lo presta, pecca 
gravissimamente, ed h sempre obbhgato ad osservare il giuramento nel senso 
in cui egU sapea che le sue parole erano prese dall' altro, secondo la deci- 
sione di S. Augostino (epist. 224) ' Perjuri sunt qui servatis verbis, expecta- 
tionem eorum quibus juratum est deceperunt.' Chi giura esternamente 
senza interna intenzione di giurare, commette gravissimo peccato, e rimane 

con tutto cio nell' obbligo di adimperlo In somma tutto che 

h contrario aUa buona fede, h iniquo, e facendovi intervenire il nome di Dio 
si aggrava I'miquitjl colla reitk del sacrilegio."— Opusc. Theolog. Kom. 1851, 
p. 28. 

Natalis Alexander. 

" Perjurium est mendacium juramento firmatum. lUos vero mentiri com- 
pertum est, qui juramenti verba proferunt, et jurare vel obligare se nolunt, 
aut qui restrictiones mentales et sequivocationes jurando adhibent^ siquidem 
verbis significant quod in mente non habent, contra finem propter quern 
institutse sunt voces, ut videlicet sint signa conceptuum. Yel aliud VQlunt 
17 



386 NOTES. 

qu^m verba significent secundum se et secundum communem loquendi 
morem, et personarum ac negotiorum circumstantias ; atque ita verbis ad 
societatem fovendam institutis abutuntur." — Theol. Lib. iv. c, iv. Art. 3. 
Keg. 11. 

Contenson. 

" Atque ex his apparet quam damnanda sit eorum semidoctorum temeri- 
tas, qui mendacia et asquivocationes verbis et exemplis Christi prsecolorant. 
Quorum doctrina, quae ars fallendi est, nihil pestilentius esse potest. Turn 
quia quod tibi non vis fieri, alteri ne feceris ; sed aequivocationum, ac restric- 
tionum mentalium patroni sequo animo non paterentur se ab aliis illudi: 
ergo illud oecumenicum naturae principium nulU ignotum, omnibus quamlibet 
barbaris implantatum violant. Tum quia urget argumentum Augustinus, 
etc. . . . Sane sicut aegr^ cum illis convivimus, quorum linguam non intel- 
ligimus ; et authore Augustino, Mb. 19, de Civit. ' Libentius vivit homo cum 
cane suo, quam cum homine alieno :' aegriiis cert^ cum illis conversamur qui 
fraudes artificio tectas adhibent, audientes circumveniunt dolis, insidiis eos 
petunt, tempus observant, verbaque idonea aucupantur, quibus Veritas veluti 
quodam involucre obtegitur : sicut e contra nihil eorum convictu suavius, 
qui ab omni simulandi studio longe absentes, sincero animo, candido ingenio, 
aperta voluntate praediti sunt, oderunt artes, nudam veritatem tarn am ant, 
quam loquuntur : quorum denique manus linguae, lingua cordi, cor rationi, 
ratio Deo congruit, et tota vita unius faciei est, unius et coloris : nee aliud 
OS prae se fert, aliud animus celat, et verborum duplicium velo obtendit. 
Certe tolerabilior erat Babylonica confusio, in qua invicem loquentes se 
minime intelligebant, eorum convictu, qui non se intelligunt, nisi ut sese 
mutuo decipiant. 

" Nee obest quod nomine aequivocationum, vel restrictionum mentalium 
mendacia fucent. Nam ut ait Hilarius lib. 2. de Trinit., ' Sensus, non sermo, 
fit crimen. ubi simplicitas Christiana, quae regul^ ilia Legislatoris sui 
Christi contenta est : Sit sermo vester, Est est, Non non ! ' ubi est mulier 
ilia virilis totam ProbabiUstarum aequivocationibus veniam dantium nationem 
confusura ! quae referente Hieronymo epist. 49, nee ad gravissimos torturarum 
et dirae mortis cruciatus vitandos aequivocationum usum septies icta advoca- 
vit."— Theol. vii. p. 30. 

Goncina. 

" Cardo disputationis Augustinianae, in duobus recensitis libris, potissi- 
mum in eo vertitur, ut rationes praebeantur pro veritatis occultatione in nego- 
tiis summi momenti . . . Augustinus nulla reperire remedia potuit praeter 
haec : Primum est silentium . . . Alterum est aperta et invicta significatio. . . . 
NuUam aliam viam occultandi veritatem agnovit, — non restrictiones intemas, 
non materiales locutiones, non verborum amphibolias, non alia juniorum 
inventa." — Theol. T. iii. p. 278. Lib. v. in Decal. Diss. 3. c. 5. prop. 2d. 



NOTES. 387 

"... . Haec autem omnium scopulorum, et difficultatum origo : quia cum 
non possit rectse disputationi locus esse, nisi id pateat de quo est disputan- 
dum ; certas et claras notiones sequivocationum, amphibologiarum, et men- 
talium restrictionum praefinire minime possumus, attentis recentiorum dis- 
tinctiunculis, efifugiis, et thecnis, quae rem banc, maxime implicatam efficiunt. 
Has ambages ut evitarem, cursum inceptum abrumpere, telamque redordiri, 
atque retexere decrevi : idque consilii cepi, ut primum omnium de mendacio 
sermonem instituam. Illud namque commodi mihi peracta controversise 
tractatio attulit, ut deprehenderim, nihil a recentioribus Theologis pro 
licito amphibologiarum usu efferri quod prius ab antiquis tum Philosophis, 
tum Patribus aUquibus usurpatum non fuerit in mendaciorum patrocinium. 
Nee aliud discrimen mihi utrorumque fundamenta perpendenti occurrit, nisi 
quod antiqui eas locutiones quas recentiorum Theologorum non pauci am- 
phibologicas, sequivocas et materiales vocant, ingenua sinceritate mendacia 
appellaverint." — Diss. iii. De Juram. Dol. etc. 

Caramuel, 

" . . . . Est mihi," inquit, " innata aversio contra restrictiones mentales. 
Si enim continentur inter terminos pietatis, et sinceritatis, necessariae non 
sunt. Nam omnia quae ipsae praestare possunt, praestabunt consignificantes 
circumstantiae. Quod si tales dicantur, ut etiam ibi admittendse sint, ubi 
desuut circumstantiae significantes (ignoscant mihi earumdem auctores, et 
propugnatores) tollunt humanam societatem, et securitatem, et tamquam 
pestiferae damnandae sunt. Quoniam semel admissae aperiunt omni men- 
dacio, omni perjurio viam. Et tota dififerentia in eo erit ut quod heri vocar 
batur mendacium, naturam, et malitiam non mutet, sed nomen, ita ut hodie 
jubeatur Restrictio mentalis nominari; quod est virus condire saccharo, et 
scelus specie virtutis colorare." — Apud Concinam TheoL Diss. iii. De Juram. 
Dol. etc. 

S, Thomas, 

" Quando non est eadem jurantis intentio, et ejus cui jurat, si hoc pro- 
veniat ex dolo jurantis, debet juramentum servari secundum sanum intel- 
lectum ejus, cui juramentum praestatur. Si autem jurans dolum non adhi- 
beat, obligatur secundum intentionem jurantis." — Apud Nat. Alex, 

S. Isidorus. 

" Quacunque arte verborum quisquis juret, Deus tamen qui conscientiae 
testis est, ita hoc accipit, sicut ille, cui juratur, intelligit. Dupliciter autem 
reus fit, qui et Dei nomen in vanum assumit, et proximum dolo capit." — 
Apud Nat. Alex. 



388 NOTES. 

S, Augustinus, 

"Illud san^ rectissime dici non ambigo, non secundum verba jurantis, 
sed secundum expectationem illius cui juratur, quam novit ille qui jurat, 
fidem jurationis impleri. Nam verba diflficillime comprehendunt, maxime 
breviter, sententiam cujus a jurante fides exigitur. Unde perjuri sunt, qui 
servatis verbis, expectationem eorum, quibus juratum est, deceperunt: et 
perjuri non sunt, qui etiam verbis non servatis, illud quod ab eis cum jura- 
rent expectatum est, impleverunt." — Apud Natal. Alex. 

Gattaneo. 

" Sappiasi dunque, che 1' oblige della veracity, cio^, di conformare le 
parole ai sentiment! dell' animo nostro, egli e principalmente fondato nella 
necessity del commercio umano ; onde elle non devono giammai ne possono 
lecitamente opporsi a questo fine, si giusto, si necessario, e si importante ; 
tolto il quale, diverebbe il mondo una Babilonia di confusione. E cio acca- 
derebbe in gran parte, ogni qual volta non si potessero custodire, ne difendere 
i segreti d' alta importanza, e ne seguissero altri mali ancbe peggiori, distrut- 
tivi di lor natura di questo stesso commercio, per cui h stato istituito il par- 
lare. Ognun vede, quanto tornerebbe in acconcio ad un mandatario, se non 
conoscendo la persona, che deve uccidere, io da lui ioterrogato, mentre il 
traditore sta dubbioso coll' archibugio gi^ alzato, dovessi, o approvar col 

sUenzio, o titubare, o rispondergli, 'Si egli h il tale.' In somiglianti 

caei, ne quali viene ingiustamente assalita la vostra sincerity, quando non 
sovvenga altro mezzo piu pronto, e piu efficace, e quando non basti dire ' no'l 
so ; ' piantisi pure in faccia a costoro un ' No ' franco e risoluto, senza pensar 
ad altro. Imperocche un tal ' no ' egli h conforme alia mente^universale degli 
uomini, i quali sono arbitri delle parole, e certamente non le hanno obligate 
a danno della Republica umana, n^ hanno gi^ mai pattuito di usarle in pro 
di furbi, di spie, d' incendarii, di masnadieri, e di ladri. Torno a dire, che 
quel No egli h conforme alia mente universale degli uomini, e a questa mente 
deve esser unita e coUegata anche la vostra. Chi non vede 1' utile manifesto, 
che ne trarrebbero gli assassini di strada, se i passeggieri interrogati se ab- 
bian seco oro, o gemme dovissero, o tergiversare, o rispondere, ' si che 1' ab- 
biamo ; ' adunque, in tali congiunture, quel ' No,' che voi proferite (Card. 
Pallav. lib. iii. c. xi. n. 23 de fide, spe, &c.) resta privo del suo significato e 
resta appunto agguisa di una moneta, a cui per volere del Principio, sia stato 
tolto il valore, con cui prima correva ; onde in niun modo voi siete reo di 
menzogna." — Lezione xliv. Prima Parte. 

Bolgeni. 
" Abbiamo dunque bene, e con certezza piu che morale, provata una eccezione 



NOTES. 389 

da porsi alia legge generale di non mentire, cio^, quando non si possa osser- 
vare qualche altro precetto piu importante se non col dir bugia. Dicono al- 
cuni che nei casi della impossibility, sopra esposta non e bugia, quelle che si 
dice. Ma chi dice cosi, confonde le idee, e nega I'essenza delle cose. Che 
cosa e la bugia ? Est locutio contra mentem ; cosi la definiscono tutti. Atqui 
nei casi della impossibility sovra espoSta si parla contra meniem : cio ^ chiaro 
ed evidente. Dunque si dice bugia. Distinguiamo la bugia dal peccato. 
'Nei casi detti si dice realmente bugia ; ma questa hugia non e peccato per 
ragione della impossibility. H dire che in quel casi niuno ha diritto d'inter- 
rogare; che le parole significano secondo la convenzione comune fra gli 
uomini ; e cose simili, che da alcuni Autori si dicono per esimere da peccato 
la bugia in quel casi : questo h un attaccarsi a ragioni frivole, e soggette a 
molte repliche quando si ha la ragione evidente della citata impossibiht^." — 
II Possesso, c. 48. 

Author in the Melanges Theologiques. 

"H reste done acquis, et nous n'avbns pas le moindre doute sur la verite 
de cette conclusion, que si I'intention de tromper le prochain, est essentielle 
au mensonge, il sera permis de dire ce qu'on salt 6tre faux, en certain cas, 

comme pour eviter un grand danger Au reste, que personne ne 

E'efftaie, il ne sera jamais permis de mentir, et en cela nous sommes d'accord 
avec tous les theologiens : nous nous eloignons d'eux en ce seul point qu'ils 
appellent mensonge^ ce qui ne Test pas pour nous, ou si Ton veut, ils regard- 
ent comme mensonge formel et materiel ce qui pour nous est seulement un 
mensonge materiel." — Melanges Theologiques, vi'^^ Serie, p. 442. 

Milton, 

" Veradtas est Yirtus qua ei cui sequum est, et quibus de rebus convenit 
ad bonum proximi, vera dicimus. Psal. xv. 2. Pro v. xii. 17, 21 ; xx. 6. 
Zech. viii. 16. Eph. iv. 25. 

" Huic opponitur dissimulatio vitiosa. Nam omnis non improbatur : non 
enim semper vera palam expromere necesse habemus ; ea tantum reprehen- 
ditur quae mahtiosa est. 

" Secundo opponitur mendacium. Psal. v. '7 ; xii. 2, 3. Prov. xiii. 5 ; 
xix. 5. Joan viii. 44. Apoc. xxii. 15. Mendacio itaque ne Dei quidem 
causa est utendum. Job xiii. 7. 

" Mendacium vulgo definitur, quo falsum animo fallendi verbis fadisve 
signijicatur. Sed quoniam ssepe usu venit, ut non solum vera dissimulare aut 
reticere, sed etiam fallendi animo falsa dicere, utile ac salutare proximo sit, 
danda opera est, ut mendacium quid sit melius definiamus. Neque enim 
video cur non idem de mendacio, quod de homicidio aliisque rebus, de qui- 
bus infra dicetur, nunc dici possit, quae non tam facto, quam objecto et fine 



390 KOTES. 

agendi ponderanda sunt. Esse enim quos jure optimo fallendos putemus, 
quis sanus negaverit ? quid enim pueros, quid furentes, quid asgrotos, quid 
ebrios, quid hostes, quid fallentes, quid latrones ? (certe juxta illud tritum, 
Cui nullum est jus, ei nulla fit injuria:) an illos ne fallamus religio erit? per 
banc tamen definitionem ne illos quidem dictis aut factis fallere licebit. 
Certe si gladium, aliamve rem quam apud me sanus deposuerit, eidem fu- 
renti non reddiderim, cur veritatem non depositam, ei ad quem Veritas minime 
pertineat, male usuro expromam ? Enimvero si quidquid cuicunque interro- 
ganti respondetur fallendi animo, mendacium est censendum, profecto Sanctis 
viris et prophetis nihil familiarius erat quam mentiri. 

" Quid si igitur mendacium hoc modo definiamus ? Mendacium est cum 
quis dolo malo aut veritatem depravat, autfalsum dicit ei, quicunque is sit,, cui 
dicere veritatem ex officio debuerat. Sic diabolus serpens primus erat mendax, 
Gen. iii. 4. et Cain, cap. iv. 9. et Sara, cap. xviii. 15. angehs enim merito 
offensis non satisfecit ingenua confessione : et Abrahamus, cap. xii. 13. et 
cap. XX. illud enim de Sara tanquam sorore figmentum, ut ipseddicisse po- 
terat in ^Egypto, quamvis incolumitatem vitse sibi proposuerat solam, homi- 
nes tamen inscientes in errorem et alieni cupiditatem induxit: et Davides 
fugiens, 1 Sam. xxi. 3. debebat enim non celasse Abimelecum quo loco res 
suse apud regem essent, neque tantum periculum hospiti creare : sic Ananias 
et Sapphira, Act. v., mentiti sunt. 

"Ex hac definitione, l«io, hand secus atque ex altera, patet, parabolas, 
hyperbolas, apologos, ironias mendacia non esse : h^c enim omnia non fal- 
lendi sed erudiendi studio adhibentur. 1 Regmn xviii. 27. et xxii. 15. 2^0^ 
si fallendi vocem significatione debita sumamus, neminem quidem fallere po- 
terimus, quin eum eadem opera Isedamus. . Quem igitur nuUo modo Igedi- 
mus, sed vel jiivamus, vel ab injuria aut inferenda aut patienda prohibemus, 
eum certe ne falso quidem millies dicto revera fallimus, sed vero potius bene- 
ficio necopinantem afficimus. 3tio, dolos et strategemata in bello, modo ab- 
sit perfidia aut perjurium, non esse mendacia omnes concedunfc : quae conces- 
sio alteram definitionem plane destruit. Vix enim ullaB insidise aut doli in 
bello strui possunt, quin palam idque summo fallendi studio dicantur mijlta 
quae falsissima sunt : unde per illam definitionem mendacio absolvi nequeunt. 
Hanc igitur potius ob causam licere strategemata dicendum erit, etiam cum 
mendacio conjuncta, eo quod, si quis est cui verum dicere officii nostri non 
sit, nihil certe interest an illi, quoties expedit, etiam falsum dicamus : nee 
video cur hoc in bello magis quam in pace liceat, prsesertim quoties injuriam 
aut periculum a nobismetipsis aut a proximo salutari et probo quodam men- 
dacio depellere licet. 

" Quae igitur testimonia scriptures contra mendacium proferuntur, de eo 
intelligenda sunt mendacio, quod aut Dei gloriam aut nostrum proxiraive 
bonum imminuere videatur. Hujusmodi sunt, praeter ea quae supra citavi- 
mus, Lev. xix. Ps. ci. 7. Prov. vi. 16, lY. Jer. ix. 5. His atque aliishu- 



NOTES. 391 

jusmodi locis veritatem dicere jubemur : at cui ? non hosti, non furioso, non 
violento, non sicario ; sed proximo, quicum scilicet pax et justa societas 
nobis intercedit. Jam vero si veritatem soli proximo dicere jubemur, pro- 
fecto iis qui nomen proximi non merentur, ne falsum quidem, quoties opus 
est, dicere vetamur. Qui aliter sentit, ex eo libens qusererem, quonam de- 
calogi praecepto prohibeatur mendacium ? respondebit certissime, nono. 
Age, recitet modo, et mecum sentiet ; quidquid enim hie prohibetur, id prox- 
imum Isedere ostenditur ; siquod igitur mendacium non Isedit proximum, sub 
hoc certe mandate nequaquam prohibetur, 

"Hinc tot sanctissimos viros theologorum fere judicio mendacii reos 
merito absolvemus : Abrahamum, Gen. xxii. 5. cum dixit servis suis se re- 
versurum cum filio ; fallendi tamen animo, nequid illi suspicarentur ; cum 
ipse persuasus esset mactatum ibi filium se relicturum ; nam nisi ita sibi per- 
suasisset, quid hoc magnopere tentationis erat? sed intellexit vir sapiens 
nihil interesse servorum hoc ut scirent, sibi expedire in prsesentia ne scirent. 
Kebeccam et Jacobum, Gen. xxvii., prudenti enim astutia et cautione aditum 
sibi muniebant ad jus illud hsereditatis quod alter vili vendiderat ; ad jus, 
inquam, et oraculo et redemptione jam suum. At patri imposuit : immo po- 
tius errori patris, qui amore prsepostero in Esauum ferebatur, tempestive oc- 
currit. Josephum, Gen. xlii. Y. etc., multorum sane mendaciorum hominem, 
si vulgari ilia definitione stetur : quam multa enim dixit non vera, eo animx) 
ut fratres falleret ? dolo tamen fratribus non malo, sed utiHssimo. Obste- 
trices Hebrseas, Exod. i. 19, etc., comprobante etiam Deo ; fefellerant enim 
Pharaonem, non lasserant tamen, sed beneficio potius affecerant, dum male 
faciendi facultatem ademerunt, Mosen, Exod. iii., etiam a Deo jussum iter 
tridui a Pharaone petere, quasi ad rem divinam faciendam in deserto ; eo 
licet consiho petentem ut Pharaoni verba daret; non causam enim pro 
causa, vel fictam saltem pro vera profectionis afiferebat. Universum populum- 
IsraeUticum, Exod. xi. et xii., ab eodem Deo jussum aurum, vasa, vestemque 
pretiosam ab ^Egyptiis mutuam petere ; et poUicitum sine dubio reddere : 
fallendi tamen animo ; quidni enim et Dei hostes et hospitii violatores et 
spoliatores jamdiu suos? Kaabbam, Jos. ii. 4, 6. splendide mentitam, nee 
sine fide ; fallebat enim quos Deus falli voluit, populares licet suos, et magis- 
tratus : quos voluit ille salvos conservabat ; civile officium religioni recte 
posthabuit. Ehudem, qui dupUci mendacio Eglonem fefellit, Judic. iii. 19, 
20. nee injuria tamen, quippe hostem ; idque Dei non injussu. Jaelem, quae 
confugientem ad se Siseram blanditiis perdidit, Judic. iv. 18, 19. hostem licet 
Dei magis quam suum : quamquam id non mendacio, sed pia fraude factum 
vult Junius, quasi quidquam interesset. Jonathanem, dum rogatus ab amico 
Davide causam ejus absentiae fictam refert patri, 1 Sam. xx. 6,* 28. malebat 
enim innocentis saluti quam patris cn^delitati oflficiosum se esse; et majoris 
erat momenti ad charitatem ut innocentis amici consuleretur vitae, interposi- 
to licet mendacio, quam ut patri ad maleficium exequendum veritatis inutili 



392 LIST OF WRITINGS. 

confessione mos gereretur. Hos atque alios tot vires sanctissimos vulgari 
ilia definitione mendacii condemnatos, vetuli ex limbo quodam patrum dis- 
quisitio hsec veritatis accuratior educit." 



The request lias been made to me from various quarters 
for a list of my writings. This I now give, omitting several 
pamphlets and articles in Reviews, &c., of minor importance. 

1. Life and Writings of Cicero Griffin. 

2. Life of ApoUonius Tyanseus and Essay on Scripture 

Miracles Griffin. 

3. Article in London Keview, on Greek Tragedy . . Out of print. 

4. History of the Arians Lumley. 

5 — 10. Parochial Sermons Out of print. 

11. Plain Sermons (vol. 5th) Kivingtons. 

12. Home Thoughts Abroad in the British Magazine, 1832 — 

1836 Out of print. 

13. Tracts for the Times (smaller Tracts), Nos. 1, 2. 6, 1, 8. 10, 

11. 19, 20, 21. 34. 38. 41. 45. 47 . . . Kivingtons. 

Tracts for the Times (larger Tracts), Nos. Tl. IS. 75. 79. 

82, 83. 85. 88. 90 Eivingtons. 

14. Pamphlets. 1. Suffragan Bishops. 2. Letter to Faussett. 

3. Letters by Catholicus. 4. Letter to Jelf. 5. Let- 
ter to Bishop of Oxford . . . . . Out of print. 

15. Articles in British Critic, 1836—1842. 1. Apostolical Tra- 

dition. 2. Dr. Wiseman's Lectures. 3. DelaMennais. 

4. Geraldine. 5. Memorials of Oxford. 6. Exeter 
HaU. 7. Pahner on the Church of Christ. 8. St. 
Ignatius of Antioch. 9. State of Keligious Parties. 
10. American Church. 11. Catholicity of the Eng- 
lish Church. 12. Countess of Huntingdon. 13. Anti- 
christ. 14. Milman's Christianity. 15. Bowden's 
Hildebrand. 16. Private Judgment. 17. Davison. Out of print. 

16. Church of the Fathers . . . . . . . Duffy. 

17. Prophetical Office of the Church .... Out of print. 

18. Doctrine of Justification Rivingtons. 

19. University Sermons Rivingtons. 

20.. Sermons on Subjects of the Day .... Out of print. 

21. Annotated Translation of St. Athanasius . . . Parker, Oxford. 

22. Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles .... Rivingtons. 

23. Essay on Development of Doctrine ..... Toovey.. 



LIST OF WEITINGS. 393 

24. Dissertatiunculae Critico-Theologicae . . Out of print. 

25. Loss and Gain ...... Burns and Lambert- 

26. Sermons to Mixed Congregations Duffy. 

27. Anglican Difficulties Duffy. 

28. Catholicism in England ' . Duffy. 

29. Lectures on the Turks . Duffy. 

30. University Education Longman. 

31. Office and Vfork of Universities Longman. 

32. Lectures on University Subjects Longman. 

33. Verses on Religious Subjects Out of print. 

(Vide also S in Lyra Apostolica.) 

34. Callista .... ... Burns and Lambert. 

35. Occasional Sermons Burns and Lambert. 

36. Rambler, 1859 — 1860. Ancient Saints, 1 — 5 . Burns and Lambert. 

37. Atlantis, 1. Benedictine Order, 2. Benedictine Centuries. 

3. St. Cyril's Formula Longman. 

38. Apologia pro Vita sua Longman. 



17* 



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